The Invention of Athens: The Funeral Oration in the Classical City.

From the library of Prof. Wolfgang Haase, long-time editor of ANRW and the International Journal of the Classical Tradition (IJCT). - Condition: Minimal wear to slightly yellowed dust jacket. Otherwise in perfect condition. / Zustand: Minimale Abnutzungserscheinungen am leicht vergilbten Schutzumschlag. Ansonsten in perfektem Zustand. - Content: This book is the fruit of research carried out between 1970 and 1976. Thus it was begun before the topic of death had come into its own, and completed before the notion of the �imaginary� conquered, on the intellectual stage where the great watchwords follow one another, the ground left vacant by the collapse of ideology. In an earlier form the work was presented under the title �Ath�s imaginaire. Histoire de l�oraison fun�e dans la �cit�lassique� � for the degree of doctorat d�Etat at the University of Paris I. The jury consisted of H�ne Ahrweiler, Philippe Gauthier, H. van Effenterre, J.-P. Vernant, and P. Vidal-Naquet. This book incorporates various changes made largely in response to suggestions from members of the jury, and most of the Greek has been transliterated or translated. There are few references to publications since October 1976, when the original work had already been rewritten several times. The history of this book is freighted with debts. Undoubtedly the principal one is to my colleagues at the Centre de Recherches Compar� sur les Soci�s Anciennes, which, led by J.-P. Vernant, M. Detienne, and P. Vidal-Naquet, is striving to free antiquity from modern preconceptions. By working at the Centre and also by studying such books as Les Origines de la pens�grecque, Les Ma�es de v�t�and Clisth� l�Ath�en, I have learned a method, come to realize that the reading of a text is nourished by a constant interaction between its contents and its context, between the closure of the text upon itself and its openness to some mythical totality that we call �Greek culture�: only then can both differences and similarities be respected. Apart from this collective debt, I must also acknowledge the immense value of many long discussions with P. Vidal-Naquet and J.-P. Vernant: this debt will be all too evident throughout the following pages. At the University of Paris I, my gratitude must extend first to H. van Effenterre, who supervised my research in a critical but always benevolent way, and to H�ne^ Ahrweiler, who gave this book the support of the University. I also wish to thank P. L�que, professor at the University of Besan�, who helped to defend my research. F. Furet, Chairman of the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, accepted L�Invention d�Ath�s for publication by the Ecole. Without his efforts, my thesis might never have been published. Finally, I thank Professor J. Travlos of the American School of Athens, who kindly allowed me to reproduce and adapt the plans of the Kerameikos and Agora from the Bildlexikon zur Topographie des antiken Athen. It is now up to the book to live its own history. ISBN 9780674463622