Research Catalog

Details

Description

1. xii, 316 pages; 25 cm

Summary

1. Modern scholarship judges Herodotus to be a more complex writer than his past readers supposed. His Histories is now being read in ways that are seemingly incompatible if not contradictory. This volume interrogates the various ways the text of the Histories has been and can be read by scholars: as the seminal text of our Ur-historian, as ethnology, literary art and fable. Our readings can bring out various guises of Herodotus himself: an author with the eye of a travel writer and the mind of an investigative journalist; a globalist, enlightened but superstitious; a rambling storyteller but a prose stylist; the so-called 'father of history' but in antiquity also labelled the 'father of lies'; both geographer and gossipmonger; both entertainer and an author whom social and cultural historians read and admire. Guiding students chapter-by-chapter through approaches as fascinating and often surprising as the original itself, Sean Sheehan goes beyond conventional Herodotus introductions and instead looks at the various interpretations of the work, which themselves shed light on the original. With text boxes highlighting key topics and indices of passages, this volume is an essential guide for students whether reading Herodotus for the first time, or returning to revisit this crucial text for later research.

Subject

1. Herodotus > History > Appreciation
2. Art appreciation
3. History (Herodotus)

Call number

1. JFE 18-4643

Bibliography (note)

1. Includes bibliographical references and index.

Author

1. Sheehan, Sean, 1951- author.

Title

1. A guide to reading Herodotus' histories / Sean Sheehan.

Publisher

1. London ; New York, NY : Bloomsbury Academic, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2018.

Type of content

1. text

Type of medium

1. unmediated

Type of carrier

1. volume

Bibliography

1. Includes bibliographical references and index.

LCCN

1. 2017040899

ISBN

1. 9781474292665 paperback
2. 1474292666 paperback
3. 9781474292672 hardcover
4. 1474292674 hardcover

Research call number

1. JFE 18-4643