The Orientalizing Revolution
Near Eastern Influence on Greek Culture in the Early Archaic Age
Walter Burkert author Margaret E Pinder translator
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Harvard University Press
Published:10th Sep '98
Should be back in stock very soon
The splendid culture of the ancient Greeks has often been described as emerging like a miracle from a genius of its own, owing practically nothing to its neighbors. Walter Burkert offers a decisive argument against that distorted view, pointing toward a balanced picture of the archaic period “in which, under the influence of the Semitic East—from writers, craftsmen, merchants, healers—Greek culture began its unique flowering, soon to assume cultural hegemony in the Mediterranean.”
Brilliant...[Burkert] is consistently thorough and challenging...Without denying the role of innate talent, he shows that much of the Greek miracle grew from an openness to influences from other cultures...[His] careful scholarship...has constructed the bridge that he set out to build. -- Carol G. Thomas * American Historical Review *
An elegant and academically influential work...The Orientalizing Revolution can be enthusiastically recommended. -- Simon Hornblower * Times Literary Supplement *
Burkert's The Orientalizing Revolution remains an outstanding, or rather the outstanding, contribution to the question of `Near Eastern influence on Greek culture in the Early Archaic Age. * Greece and Rome *
This thought provoking work is an updated translation of Burkert's Die orientlisierende Epoche in der griechischen Religion und Literature, 1984...It is refreshing to see a classical scholar follow in the footsteps of eminent Near Eastern scholars such as Cyrus Gordon and Michael Astour who have long argued for interconnections in the ancient Mediterranean world. -- Mark W. Chavalas * Near East Archaeological Society Bulletin *
ISBN: 9780674643642
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: 272g
238 pages