The invention of Greek ethnography : from Homer to Herodotus /
This book is a study of the origins and development of ethnographic thought, Greek identity and narrative history - commonly referred to as Great Historiography. An introductory chapter outlines the problem, namely that current thinking on the way in which Greek ethnography and identity came into be...
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| Format: | eBook |
| Language: | English |
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Oxford ; New York :
Oxford University Press,
[2012]
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| Series: | Greeks overseas.
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | Connect to the full text of this electronic book |
| Summary: | This book is a study of the origins and development of ethnographic thought, Greek identity and narrative history - commonly referred to as Great Historiography. An introductory chapter outlines the problem, namely that current thinking on the way in which Greek ethnography and identity came into being has yet to take full account of recent advances in ethnographic and cultural studies. This, together with an apparent obliviousness to the results of material culture-based analyses of the Ancient Mediterranean attesting to high levels interconnectivity, mobility and exchange, has placed significant limitations upon our ability to understand the social and intellectual milieu from which Great Historiography would eventually emerge. The introduction also examines how modern preconceptions and concerns have structured the way in which Greek ethnography and identity are both framed and conceptualised. This is further underlined in a follow-up section exploring the attitudes and opinions underpinning Felix Jacoby's Die Fragmente der Griechische Historiker: a monumental work that played a key role in defining ethnography as genre. Chapter II conducts a broad census of the ethnographic imaginaire prior to the Persian Wars in order to challenge the prevailing orthodoxy that ethnographic interests were hazy and insubstantial prior to Xerxes' invasion of Greece — invariably conceived as an unprecedented clash of civilisations and cultures. Chapter III builds on this argument, exploring the varied ways in which ethnographic interests became manifest and the manner in which knowledge and ideas relating to foreign lands and peoples was variously disseminated. Chapter IV shifts in focus to examine how these discourses of identity and difference might have played out in a series of case studies: Olbia and its environs, the southernmost tip of the Italian peninsular (S. Calabria) and the imagined centres of Delphi and Olympia. The implications thus posed for current understanding of the origins and nature of Great Historiography are then explored (Chapter V), leading to a number of tentative conclusions regarding the manner in which ethnography, identity and the writing of history constitute overlapping and mutually implicated processes. |
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| Physical Description: | 1 online resource (xi, 343 pages) : illustrations, maps. |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references (pages 263-326) and index. |
| ISBN: | 9780199793709 0199793700 9780199979677 0199979677 |