Mary Beard
Author
Language
English
Description
From prehistoric Mexico to modern Istanbul, Mary Beard looks beyond the familiar canon of Western imagery to explore the history of art, religion, and humanity. Conceived as a gorgeously illustrated accompaniment to "How Do We Look" and "The Eye of Faith," the famed Civilisations shows on PBS, renowned classicist Mary Beard has created this elegant volume on how we have looked at art. Focusing in Part I on the Olmec heads of early Mesoamerica, the...
Author
Language
English
Description
Oscar Wilde compared it to a white goddess, Evelyn Waugh to Stilton cheese. In observers from Lord Byron to Sigmund Freud to Virginia Woolf it met with astonishment, rapture, poetry, even tears-and, always, recognition. Twenty-five hundred years after it first rose above Athens, the Parthenon remains one of the wonders of the world, its beginnings and strange turns of fortune over millennia a perpetual source of curiosity, controversy, and intrigue.
At...
Author
Language
English
Description
Jane Ellen Harrison (1850-1928) is the most famous female Classicist in history, the author of books that revolutionized our understanding of Greek culture and religion. A star in the British academic world, she became the quintessential Cambridge woman-as Virginia Woolf suggested when, in A Room of One's Own, she claims to have glimpsed Harrison's ghost in the college gardens.
This lively and innovative portrayal of a fascinating woman raises the...
Author
Language
English
Description
It followed every major military victory in ancient Rome: the successful general drove through the streets to the temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline Hill; behind him streamed his raucous soldiers; in front were his prisoners, as well as the booty he'd captured, from enemy ships and precious statues to plants and animals from the conquered territory. Occasionally there was so much on display that the show lasted two or three days.
A radical reexamination...
Author
Language
English
Description
What made the Romans laugh? Was ancient Rome a carnival, filled with practical jokes and hearty chuckles? Or was it a carefully regulated culture in which the uncontrollable excess of laughter was a force to fear-a world of wit, irony, and knowing smiles? How did Romans make sense of laughter? What role did it play in the world of the law courts, the imperial palace, or the spectacles of the arena?
Laughter in Ancient Rome explores one of the most...
Author
Language
English
Description
Byron and Hitler were equally entranced by Rome's most famous monument, the Colosseum. Mid-Victorians admired the hundreds of varieties of flowers in its crannies and occasionally shuddered at its reputation for contagion, danger, and sexual temptation. Today it is the highlight of a tour of Italy for more than three million visitors a year, a concert arena for the likes of Paul McCartney, and a national symbol of opposition to the death penalty....
Author
Language
English
Description
We are all classicists-we come into touch with the classics on a daily basis: in our culture, politics, medicine, architecture, language, and literature. What are the true roots of these influences, however, and how do our interpretations of these aspects of the classics differ from their original reality? This introduction to the classics begins with a visit to the British Museum to view the frieze which once decorated the Apollo Temple a Bassae....
Author
Series
Language
English
Formats
Description
"A Barnes & Noble Best History Book of the Year" "A Waterstones Best History Book of 2021" "A CapX Book of the Year" "One of Kirkus Reviews' Best Nonfiction Books of the Year" "One of Kirkus Reviews' Best Biographies of the Year" "A Library Journal Fall 2021 Nonfiction Must" Mary Beard is one of the world's leading classicists and cultural commentators, and the author of bestselling and award-winning books, including SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome...
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
Destroyed by Vesuvius in 79 CE, the ruins of Pompeii offer the best evidence we have of life in the Roman Empire. But the eruptions are only part of the story. In The Fires of Vesuvius, acclaimed historian Mary Beard makes sense of the remains. She explores what kind of town it was -- more like Calcutta or the Costa del Sol? -- and what it can tell us about "ordinary" life there. --from publisher description
Author
Publisher
Liveright Publishing Corporation, a division of W.W. Norton & Company
Pub. Date
[2015]
Edition
First edition.
Language
English
Description
A prominent classicist explores ancient Rome and how its citizens adapted the notion of imperial rule, invented the concepts of citizenship and nation, and made laws about those traditionally overlooked in history, including women, slaves, and criminals.
Author
Series
Civilizations volume 2
Language
English
Description
Explore the many functions of the human image in art. Portraits, paintings and sculptures, life-size and colossal, perform a role - assuaging loss, expressing strength, inspiring fear - and were instrumental in depicting the body today.
Author
Series
Civilizations volume 3
Language
English
Description
Trace the relationship between religion and art, which has inspired some of the most ingenious, affecting, and breathtaking works of art ever made. Yet beneath great works of religious art often lie conflict, intrigue and divine mysteries.
