Rape in Antiquity: Sexual Violence in the Greek and Roman Worlds

Book Description

How did the Greeks and Romans perceive rape? How seriously was it taken, and who were seen as its main victims? The leading classical scholars who have contributed to this volume look at the social and legal realities of rape in the ancient world, and also at the numerous myths of rape which themselves may reflect real behavior and attitudes. Modern readers, used to a discourse which focuses on the question of consent to sexual activity and treats an unwilling partner as a victim worthy of sympathy, may find in ancient attitudes much that is disturbing. "Rape in Antiquity" covers topics arranged under six main headings: Athenian legal discourse; Greek myth; Greek art; Greek and Roman drama; Greek and Roman historiography; and Byzantine and Western medieval worlds.

Customer Reviews:

one of a kind.......2003-06-17

This slim volume contains twelve essays on rape and related subjects. Don't be fooled by the inclusiveness of the title, however: scholarly works are rarely that broad, and most of these essays deal directly with Classical Athens, moving to Rome only in a few essays, and actually including Byzantium and the Middle Ages, as well. Some of the works are incredibly insightful and paradigm-building; others are horribly written but contain a few pearls, if one is willing to sift through the despair of an English teacher. My personal favourites were the essays by Deacy, Kilmer, Pierce, and Arieti, with a favourable mention for Saunders. Deacy looks into Athena and how she characterized the unmarried (rapeable) virgin; Kilmer focuses on red-figure pottery and its errotic scenery, quite shocking!; Pierce sends us through the New Comedies for a look at the grostesquely amusing; and Arieti not only falls into the nuances of Livy and his portrayal of rape, but introduces a worldview that definitely provokes thought.

This book is not for the faint-hearted. Some of the portrayals are shocking to the modern mind in how ancients react to them. There are some explicit pictures in Kilmer's article, and all of them deal with a very combustable topic: rape. Nonetheless, if you're interested in womens' studies, the nuances of Ancient Greek, or even law and the philosophy of law through time, this is a book you won't want to miss.

beauty and the beast.......2002-02-08

A very interesting and though-provoking collection of essays. It covers myth, art, drama, philosophy as well as legal discourse. Although no collection of this type could ever hope to be the definitive guide to such a wide-ranging topic this book provides an excellent starting point with, on the whole well-researched and insightful articles. I found the notes and bibliographies most useful.

Gender or Classics?.......2002-02-01

This is a valuable collection, from scholars from a wide range of specialisms, of literary, historical, philosophical and legal interpretations of the concept of rape in antiquity - whether there was one and how it influenced medieval and later thought. It will be a even more useful introduction, to a topic of growing relevance to today, if, as I hear, it is soon to be re-issued in paperback.

A quarter of them are good........2000-07-13

A collection of any type of writing is always a risking purchase. It is unlikely that all the essays will be of the same quality or hold the same interest for the reader. However, a scholarly collection should have a high standard to begin with and thus I was disappointed by "Rape in Antiquity". Out of 12 articles, I can only strongly recommend three by Rosanna Omitowoju, Daniel Ogdenm, and Karen F. Pierce. All the others lack sufficient evidence to prove their theses, do not write well-enough to explain their opinions, or seem to be reading sources that are quite different from what I've read. Note that two of the twelve essays are really about the medieval world, not antiquity, and that two of the articles are about Roman ideas leaving the bulk, eight, concerning Greece, especially Athens in the classical period.

Book Description

In this compelling biography, Richard Holmes charts the life of the Duke of Wellington, Britain's greatest soldier. He follows Wellington's remarkable career, from the ruins of his family seat in Ireland and the plains of India where he first gained his reputation as a brilliant commander, to the horrors of the Peninsular War and Waterloo. Holmes sees Wellington as a brilliant figure, idealistic in politics, cynical in love, a man of enormous courage and iron duty often sickened by the horrors of war.

Customer Reviews:

An enjoyable biography, but a bit irritating! .......2007-08-22

Richard Holmes is an eminent historian and a splendid TV presenter but, though I found his study of the great Duke of Wellington an enjoyable biography that I couldn't put down until it was finished, I also found myself being irritated on too many of the 303 pages (hardback edition) by mis-spellings and stylistic and punctuation inconsistencies. An example of the latter was the mixed and varying use of inverted commas (quote marks). My own preference is for the end of a phrase or a sentence to appear thus: '................... end,' or '..................... end.' Too often the style was thus '........................ end', or '........................... end'. Mr Holmes ought to have made up his mind which way his work was to appear or his editor ought to have been sacked!

Another niggle was that the Duke's Hampshire home was named only once as 'Strathfieldsaye,' with '[sic]' to follow. Mr Holmes should have been aware that that was the original spelling and that 'Stratfield Saye' is the more modern name of the house and estate.

I mustn't criticise too much, however, because I learned much from a very good book and I recommend it to other lovers of our British history and other admirers of one of the greatest and most courageous Britons ever to have been born.

A Quality Popular Biography of the Iron Duke.......2005-03-13

Richard Holmes's "Wellington - The Iron Duke" is a well-written survey of the active life of the First Duke of Wellington. In just 300 pages, Holmes presents a balanced, even nuanced view of a man who was both the quintessential military professional and a complex human being. Through Holmes' efficient prose, we see Wellington as an extradinarily dedicated soldier who mastered his profession in ways few of his contemporaries did, yet who sometimes paid a price on campaign for his insistence on micromanaging his armies. Wellington comes across as a remarkably honest and duty-bound public servant; as a young man, he was also relentlessly ambitious, and as an older man, sensitive about his military reputation.

Holmes provides some useful insights. He suggests that exhaustion and strain were responsible for Wellington's uncharacteristically poor performance at the Siege of Burgos in 1812. Holmes examines the academic dispute over Wellington's relationship with the Prussians during the Waterloo Campaign; he tellingly notes Wellington's responsibilities to his alliance partners and to the British Government and finds that he served both. Holmes acknowledges Wellington's extramaritial activities but resists the urge to obsess over them or to indulge in psycological speculation.

Serious students of the Duke and of the Napoleonic Wars will find no new scholarship here; indeed, Holmes readily acknowledges his debt to earlier works such as Elizabeth Longford's exceptional biography and Jac Weller's battlefield narrative trilogy. Holmes has provided an accessible biography for the general reader, supported by well-chosen quotes from the Duke' contemporaries and by a nice selection of illustrations.

This book is highly recommended to the general reader with an interest in the man and the era.

Wellington: warts and all!.......2004-01-13

This is one of those books that once you take it up, you can't put it down!

Its balanced treatment of Wellington the man, the military man and the politican, has meant that this is not just a book about Waterloo.

One is left with the impression that Wellington was a great man, with equal weight given to his 'greatness' and his 'humanness'.

Very readable and highly recommended.

A good book about a great man, warts included.......2003-07-03

The book aims to be realistic - the fog of
war is foggy indeed, and Wellington sometimes makes mistakes. The
casualties at Waterloo are appalling, and the battle almost lost.
Lt.-Col. Trant of "Sharpe's Rangers" fame actually appears, an excellent soldier but "the most drunken dog there ever was" in Wellington's words.

Book Description

One of the Duke of Wellington's officers once remarked, "We would rather see his long nose in the sight than a reinforcement of ten thousand men." Arthur Wellesley, first duke of Wellington (1769â€“1852), was one of the greatest military commanders in history and is best known as the successful opponent at Waterloo of arguably the leading general of all time, Napoleon Bonaparte.

Although Waterloo is the battle most associated with Wellington, his career was much wider. He gained his first military experience in the Netherlands in 1793-94 in an unsuccessful campaign that taught him, as he said, "how not to do it." From there he went to India, where he conducted a number of successful campaigns and honed his military skills until he became Britain's leading general. With great strategic foresight and as master not only of the battlefield but also of organization and logistics, he helped expel the French from Spain and Portugal during the Peninsular War, which materially weakened Napoleon's strategic position and led to his downfall in 1814. After Napoleon returned from exile in 1815, Wellington was a principal leader of the coalition forces at Waterloo. In subsequent years, Wellington exerted a considerable influence on British politics, serving as prime minister and in later life as a trusted elder statesman. Upon his death, he was widely regarded as the greatest Briton of his generation and undisputedly one of the greatest British soldiers.

The Duke of Wellington has been the subject of many biographies over the years but none as comprehensive yet concise as this latest addition to Potomac's Military Profiles series.

Wellington Commander: The Iron Duke's Generalship

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Wellington Commander: The Iron Duke's Generalship
John Keegan , David Howarth , and Paddy Griffith
Manufacturer: Faber & Faber
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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The Iron Duke
Lawrence James
Manufacturer: Weidenfeld & Nicholson
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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The Iron Duke ;: A chronicle play in seven scenes and an epilogue, (Contemporary British dramatists)

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The Iron Duke ;: A chronicle play in seven scenes and an epilogue, (Contemporary British dramatists)
A. J Talbot
Manufacturer: E. Benn ltd
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

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The Iron Duke,
Philip Lindsay
Manufacturer: The Queensway Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
ASIN: B00087CG02

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Wellington: The Iron Duke
Richard Holmes
Manufacturer: HarperCollins Publishers Limited
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000O8OROS

Book Description

In this book we consider deep and classical results of homotopy theory like the homological Whitehead theorem, the Hurewicz theorem, the finiteness obstruction theorem of Wall, the theorems on Whitehead torsion and simple homotopy equivalences, and we characterize axiomatically the assumptions under which such results hold. This leads to a new combinatorial foundation of homology and homotopy. Numerous explicit examples and applications in various fields of topology and algebra are given.

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readable
A cheap classic by one of the masters
A great little book

Foundations of Combinatorial Topology
L .S. Pontryagin
Manufacturer: Dover Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0486406857

Book Description

Concise, rigorous introduction to homology theory features applications to dimension theory and fixed-point theorems. Includes examinations of complexes and their Betti groups, invariance of the Betti groups, and continuous mappings and fixed points. Proofs are presented in a complete and careful manner. "...an extremely valuable addition to the literature of algebraic topology." — The Mathematical Gazette. 1952 edition.

Customer Reviews:

readable.......2002-02-19

proofs are very detailed almost pedagogic. the author always points out the goal first then digs in. the only flaw is its visual presentation - rather condensed type set. i think Pontryagin was a truly educational teacher. good for self study.

A cheap classic by one of the masters.......2000-03-09

This book covers, as the title says, the foundations of combinatorial topology. What that refers to, essentially, is the topology of polyhedra and the machinery of simplicial homology groups. The first part of the book establishes the basic facts about these topological spaces and about abstract complexes as well. The second part shows the topological invariance of simplicial homology. The third features applications of the material to fixed point theory.

Throughout the book there is also a recurring digression on dimension theory, which culminates in a proof of the very non-trivial fact that manifolds have the appropriate topological dimension.

The only formal pre-requisites for this book are basic linear algebra and point-set topology, as covered in any advanced calculus or elementary real analysis course.

The presentation is very concise and lucid throughout. I can imagine some people not liking such an extremely concise style, but the whole book is so logical that it works very well.

A great little book.......2000-02-08

This is a beautiful little book on a very pretty subject. Lev here develops very comprehensively the basic properties of polyhedra, as well as many of their basic applications. The first chapter is spent on basic topological properties of these spaces, with some applications to dimension, very explicitly set aside from the main development. The second chapter focuses on proving the topological invariance of the Betti groups, with applications of the techniques used-again carefully set aside-to dimension theory and Brouwer's fixed point theorem. The third chapter, titled Continuous Mappings and Fixed points, has as a goal proving a simple fixed point theorem. Some simple constructions and concepts of algebraic topology, such as homotopy and the cylinder construction, are introduced along the way. Unfortunately, not too long after the publication of this book, the author began to devote his energies to applied mathematics and preventing Jews from polluting Russian mathematics-but don't let that influence your possible purchase of this book.

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Foundations of Combinatorial Topology
L. S. Pontryagin
Manufacturer: Graylock Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000NJ4BDA

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Foundations of Combinatorial Topology
L S Pontryagin
Manufacturer: GRAYLOCK PRESS
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000Q9VWR0

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Foundations of Combinatorial Topology.

ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000ICNJ0S

Topics in Combinatorial Group Theory (Lectures in Mathematics. ETH Zürich)

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the best book in my life
An interesting book about combinatorial group theory

Topics in Combinatorial Group Theory (Lectures in Mathematics. ETH Zürich)
Gilbert Baumslag
Manufacturer: Birkhäuser Basel
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 3764329211

Book Description

Combinatorial group theory is a loosely defined subject, with close connections to topology and logic. With surprising frequency, problems in a wide variety of disciplines, including differential equations, automorphic functions and geometry, have been distilled into explicit questions about groups, typically of the following kind: Are the groups in a given class finite (e.g., the Burnside problem)? Finitely generated? Finitely presented? What are the conjugates of a given element in a given group? What are the subgroups of that group? Is there an algorithm for deciding for every pair of groups in a given class whether they are isomorphic or not? The objective of combinatorial group theory is the systematic development of algebraic techniques to settle such questions. In view of the scope of the subject and the extraordinary variety of groups involved, it is not surprising that no really general theory exists. These notes, bridging the very beginning of the theory to new results and developments, are devoted to a number of topics in combinatorial group theory and serve as an introduction to the subject on the graduate level.

Customer Reviews:

the best book in my life.......2003-05-02

The book is very instructive.

An interesting book about combinatorial group theory.......1998-09-24

This is an interesting book, dealing with subjects such as Burnside's problem, Nielsen-Schreier theorem, graphs of groups, amalgamated products...

Consequences of Martin's Axiom (Cambridge Tracts in Mathematics)

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Consequences of Martin's Axiom (Cambridge Tracts in Mathematics)
D. H. Fremlin
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Foundations of Combinatorial Topology.
L.S. Pontryagin
Manufacturer: See notes
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000V0FWJS

Topological, Algebraical and Combinatorial Structures: Frolik's Memorial Volume (Topics in Discrete Mathematics)

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Topological, Algebraical and Combinatorial Structures: Frolik's Memorial Volume (Topics in Discrete Mathematics)
J. Nesetril
Manufacturer: North-Holland
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Book Description

Human ecology is an emerging discipline that studies the interrelationships between humans and their environment, drawing on insights from biology, sociology, anthropology, geography, engineering, architecture, landscape architecture, planning, and conservation. While a vast, multidisciplinary literature underscores this approach, until now no one has synthesized the work of diverse, sometimes divergent, scholars to illustrate how human interactions can be understood as ecological relationships, using hierarchy as an organizing device.

In Human Ecology, noted landscape planner Frederick Steiner builds on the work of leading thinkers including Christopher Alexander, William Cronon, Clifford Geertz, James Lovelock, Eugene Odum, Paul Shepard, Anne Whiston Spirn, E. O. Wilson, Gerald Young, and many others to present a historical and analytical examination of how humans interact with each other as well as with other organisms and their surroundings.

The first two chapters summarize the development of this "new ecology" and the theory of human ecology. The remainder of the book provides an accessible introduction to the major elements of human ecological theory including language, culture, and technology; structure, function, and change; edges and boundaries; interaction, integration, and institution; diversity; and adaptation. The chapters are organized hierarchically from the smallest scale to the largest with each chapter addressing a specific level as an ecosystem. The final chapter probes some of the ethical implications of this new field.

Human Ecology brings together for the first time scholarship from the social and natural sciences as well as the environmental design arts to offer an overview of the field of human ecology and to show how the field may help us to envision our futures. While the approach is largely theoretical, it has broad policy and practical implications, and represents an important new work for anyone concerned with interactions between humans and the environment.

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