Friday, October 20, 2006
John Keegan on Vietnam and the 4th Estate = 5th Column
Pepe, before you dismiss this guy as a stooge of Amerikkka and a racist warmonger you should read some of his works. For example has been theorizing for years that it might be possible to eliminate war from the world as has almost been done with slavery (outside the muslim world?). If you want, I will dig this stuff up, though my favorite of his writings are simply about military history.
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I remember Vietnam analogies surfacing when the U.S. was preparing to invade Afghanistan, just after 9-11.
The analogy that was ignored, the one I thought better, was Thomas Jefferson's response to the Barbary Pirates.
But alas: as JJ says, history is a bunch of nonsense. What we really need are more engineers (of course, I have 80% reason to believe JJ's joking).
And meanwhile, Keegan continues to compose superfluous articles.
...what is that? A scimitar against our necks? Oh-well: at least we had a good run...
More good engineers might ward off th scimitar. No mass of historians will. Sad. History was my favorite subject in school.
While I do appreciate your ahistorical, neo-presentness worldview, JJ, can't historians make a historical argument to the engineers that it's necessary to engineer counter-scimitar devices?
By the way: you should browse the Ancient Roman historiography section of your library. While important, your buddy Gibbon is a bit dated.
See following bibliography:
Peter Brown, The World of Late Antiquity AD150-750: from Marcus Aurelius to Muhammad. London 1971.
Week 3 September 8-10
A.H.M. Jones, The Later Roman Empire 284-602: A Social, Economic, and Administrative Survey. 3 Vols. Oxford 1964.
G. Fowden, Empire to Commonwealth: Consequences of Monotheism in late antiquity. Princeton 1993.
Various Authors, “SO Debate: The World of Late Antiquity Revisited,” Symbolae Osloenses 72 (1997), 5-90.
G. Bowersock, et al., Interpreting Late Antiquity: Essays on the Postclassical World. Cambridge, MA 2001.
P. Brown, The Making of Late Antiquity. Cambridge, MA 1978.
A. Cameron, The Later Roman Empire AD 284-430. London 1993.
A. Cameron, The Mediterranean World in Late Antiquity AD 395-600. London 1993.
F. M. Clover and R. S. Humphreys, “Towards a definition of Late Antiquity,” Tradition and Innovation in Late Antiquity (London 1989), 3-26.
P. Garnsey and C. Humfress, The Evolution of the Late Antique World. Cambridge 2001.
E. Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. New York 1776-88.
A. Kazhdan, et al. Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium. Oxford 1991.
T. E. Gregory, History of Byzantium, 306-1453. Oxford 2005.
J. Herrin, The Formation of Christendom. Princeton 1987.
M. Rostotzeff, The Social and Economic History of the Roman Empire. Oxford 1966.
A. Murry, “Peter Brown and the Shadow of Constantine,” JRS 73 (1983), 191-203.
The Social and Physical World of Late Antiquity
Week 5 September 20-24
J.H.W.G. Liebeschuetz, Decline and Fall of the Roman City. Oxford 2001.
Week 6 September 27-October 1
M. Rautman, A Cypriot Village of Late Antiquity: Kalavassos-Kopetra in the Vasilikos Valley. Portsmouth, RI 2003.
Week 7 October 4-8
C. Kosso, Public Policy and Agriculture in Late Antique Greece.
The Late Roman City:
R. Alston, The City in Roman and Byzantine Egypt. London 2002.
N. Christie et al. ed. Towns in Transition. London 1996.
D. Claude, Die byzantinische Stadt im 6. Jahrhundert. Munich 1969.
R. Cormack, “Byzantine Aphrodisias. Changing the Symbolic Map of a City,” PCPhS 216 (1990), 26-41.
J.R. Curran, Pagan City and Christian Capital: Rome in the Fourth Century. Oxford 2000.
C. Foss, History and Archaeology of Byzantine Asia Minor. Hampshire 1990.
G. Fowden, “The Athenian Agora and the Progress of Christianity,” JRA 3 (1990), 494-501
G. Fowden, “Late Roman Achaea: Identity and Defence,” JRA 8 (1995), 549-567.
A. Frantz, Late Antiquity: A.D. 267-700. Athenian Agora 24 Princeton, 1988.
T. E. Gregory, “Cities and Social Evolution in Roman and Byzantine South East Europe,” in European Social Evolution. Archaeological Perspectives. ed J. Bintliff, (Bradford 1985), 267-276.
C. Haas, Alexandria in Late Antiquity. Baltimore 1997.
L.J. Hall, Roman Berytus. London 2003.
A.H.M. Jones, The Greek City from Alexander to Justinian. Oxford 1940.
O. Karagiorgou, “Demetrias and Thebes: the fortunes and misfortunes of two Thessalian port cities,” in Recent Research in Late Antique Urbanism, 182-215.
H. Kennedy, "The Last Century of Byzantine Syria: A Reinterpretation," ByzFor 10 (1985), 141-183.
C. H. Kraeling, ed., Gerasa: City of the Decapolis. New Haven 1938.
R. Krautheimer, Three Christian Capitals. Berkeley 1983.
L. Lavan, ed., Recent Research in Late Antique Urbanism. JRA Supp. 42 Portsmouth, RI 2001.
D. Pallas, “Corinth et Nicopolis pendant le haut moyen-âge,” FR 18 (1979), 93-142.
P. Petrides, “Delphes dans l’antiquité tardive: premiére approache topographique et céremologique,” BCH 121 (1997), 681-695.
R. Rothaus, Corinth: The First City of Greece. Leiden 2000.
C. Roueché, Aphrodisias in Late Antiquity: the Late Roman and Byzantine Inscriptions Including Texts from the Excavations at Aphrodisias Conducted by Kenan T. Erim. JRS Monographs 5. London 1989.
G.D.R. Sanders, “Corinth,” in The Economic History of Byzantium, vol. 2. A. Laiou ed., 639-646.
H. Saradi, “The demise of the ancient city and the emergence of the medieval city in the Eastern Roman Empire,” Echos du monde classique 32 (1988), 365-401.
J.-P. Sodini, “L’habitat urbain en Grèce à la veille des invasions,” in Villes peuplement dan l’Illyricum protobyzanin, 341-396.
J. M. Spieser, "The Christianization of the City in Late Antiquity," in Urban and Religious Space in Late Antiquity and Early Byzantium, 49-55.
J. M. Spieser, “Le Ville en Grèce du IIIe au VIIe siècle” in Urban and Religious Space, 315-340.
J. Rich, ed., The City in Late Antiquity. London 1996.
H. Thompson, “Athenian Twilight: A.D. 267-600,” JRS 49 (1959), 61-72.
B. Ward-Perkins, From Classical Antiquity to the Middle Ages: Public Building in Northern and Central Italy AD 300-850. Oxford 1984.
M. Whittow, “Ruling the Late Roman and Early Byzantine City,” Past and Present 129 (1990), 3-29.
Regional Studies of the Countryside and Surveys
A. Avremea, Le Péloponnèse du IVe au VIIIe siècle. Paris 1997.
S. Alcock, Graecia Capta. Cambridge 1993.
R. Bagnall, Egypt in Late Antiquity. Princeton 1993.
W. Bowden, Epirus Vetus: The archaeology of a late antique province. London 2003.
W.Cavanagh, J. Crouwel, R.W. Catling, G. Shipley, The Laconia Survey. Vol. 2 (London 1996).
M. Hahn,”The Early Byzantine to Modern Periods” in The Berbati-Limnes Archaeological Survey 1988-1990, 345-451.
H. Forbes and C. Mee eds., A Rough and Rocky Place. Liverpool 1997.
G. Fowden, “City and Mountain in Late Roman Attica,” JHS 108 (1988), 48-59.
T. E. Gregory, “An Early Byzantine Complex at Akra Sophia near Corinthia,” Hesperia 54 (1985), 411-428.
M. Humphries, Communities of the Blessed: Social Environment and Religious Change in North Italy, AD 200-400. Oxford 1999.
M. H. Jameson, Runnels, C. N. , van Andel, C. N., A Greek Countryside. Stanford 1994. 101-111.
S. Mitchell, Anatolia: Land, Men, and Gods in Asia Minor. vol. 2: The Rise of the Church. Oxford 1993.
G. Tate, Les Campagnes de la Syrie du nord, IIe au VIIe siecles, I, Bibl. Archeologique et historique 133. Paris 1992.
F. Trombley, “Boeotia in Late Antiquity: Epigraphic Evidence on Society, Economy, and Christianization,” BOIOTIKA. H. Beister and J. Buchler eds. Munich 1989. 215-228.
M. Whitby, “The Balkans and Greece 420-620,” in The Cambridge Ancient History. Vol. 14, A. Cameron, B. Ward-Perkins, M. Whitby, eds. Cambridge 2000. 701-730.
The Christian World of Late Antiquity
F. Trombley, Hellenic Religion and Christianization c. 370-529. 2 vols. Leiden 1993.
Week 9 October 18-22
T. Mathews, The Clash of Gods. Princeton 1993.
Week 10 October 25-29
A. Cameron, Christianity and the Rhetoric of Empire. Princeton 1991.
Christianization and Conversion:
C. Babcock, “Ramsay MacMullen on conversion: a response,” The Second Century, 5 (1985/6) 82-9.
S.J.B. Barnish, S.J.B., “Religio in stagno: Nature, Divinity, and the Christianization of the Countryside in Late Antique Italy,” JECS 9 (2001), 387-402.
K. Bradley, K., “Contending with Conversion: Reflections on the Reformation of Lucius the Ass,” Phoenix (1998), 315-334.
P. Brown, “Aspects of the Christianization of the Roman Aristocracy,” JRS 51 (1961), 80-101.
P. Brown, Body and Society: Men, Women, and Sexual Renuntiation in Early Christianity. New York 1988.
P. Brown, Authority and the Sacred: Aspects of Christianisation of the Roman World. Cambridge 1995.
C.E. Caffin, C.E., “The Martyrs of Val di Non: An Examination of Contemporary Reactions,” Studia Patristica, 10 (1970) 263-269.
G. Dagron, “le christianisme dans la ville byzantine,” DOP 31 (1977) 1-26.
E. R. Dodds, Pagans and Christians in an Age of Anxiety. Cambridge 1965.
R. Fletcher, The Conversion of Europe: From Paganism to Christianity 371-1386 AD_ Harper Collins 1997
G. Fowden, “The Athenian Agora and the Progress of Christianity,” JRA 3 (1990), 494- 501.
A. Frantz, “From Paganism to Christianity in the Temples of Athens,” DOP 19 (1965), 185-205.
P. Fredriksen, “Paul and Augustine: Conversion Narrative, Orthodox Tradition, and the Retrospective Self,” JTS 37 (1986) 21-37.
R. P. C. Hanson, Review of R. MacMullen’s Christianizing the Roman Empire, CR 35 (1985), 335-337.
A. Harnack, The Mission and Expansion of Christianity in the First Three Centuries. 2nd ed. trans. J. Moffatt. London 1908.
K. Hopkins, A World Full of Gods. London 1999.
D. Hunt, “Christianizing the Roman Empire: the evidence of the Code,” in The Theodosian Code. 143-158.
W. James, The Varieties of Religious Experience. New York 1961.
A.H.M. Jones, A.H.M., Constantine and the Conversion of Europe. New York 1948.
A. Kreider, The Change of Conversion and the Origin of Christendom. Harrisburg, PA, 1999
R. Lane Fox, Pagans and Christians. New York 1987.
R. Lizzi, “Ambrose’s Contemporaries and the Christianization of Northern Italy,” JRS 80 (1990), 156-173.
R. MacMullen, Christianizing the Roman Empire (AD 100-400). New Haven 1984.
R. MacMullen, Christianity and Paganism in the Fourth to Eighth Centuries. New Haven 1997.
C. Mango, “The Conversion of the Parthenon into a Church: The Tübingen Theosophy,” DCAE 18 (1995), 201-203.
R. A. Markus, The End of Ancient Christianity. Cambridge 1990.
W. Meeks, The First Urban Christians. The Social World of the Apostle Paul. New Haven 1983.
A.D. Nock, Conversion: The Old and the New in Religion from Alexander the Great to Augustine of Hippo. Oxford 1933.
D. Praet, “Explaining the Christianization of the Roman Empire: Older Theories and Recent Developments,” Sacris Erudiri: Jaarboek voor Godsdienstwetenschappen 33 (1991-1993), 7-119.
L. M. White, “Adolf Harnack and the ‘Expansion’ of Christianity: A Reappraisal of Social History,” The Second Century 5 (2) (1985-1986), 97-127.
Material Culture and Conversion:
P. Brown, Review of T. Mathew’s Clash of Gods. Art Bulletin (1995)
W. Bowden, “A new urban elite? Church builders and church building in Late Antiquity,” in Recent Research in Late Antique Urbanism, 57-68.
B. Caseau, “Sacred Landscapes,” in Late Antiquity, 21-59.
R. Cormack, “Byzantine Aphrodisias. Changing the Symbolic Map of a City,” PCPhS
216 (1990), 26-41.
J. Elsner, Imperial Rome and Christian Triumphy. Oxford 1998.
C. Finney ed., Art, Archaeology, and Architecture of Early Christianity. New York 1993.
G. Fowden, “The Athenian Agora and the Progress of Christianity,” JRA 3 (1990), 494-501.
D. Genakoplos, “Church Building and ‘Caesaropapism’ AD 312-365,” GRBS 4 (1966), 168-182.
D. Janes, God and Gold in Late Antiquity. Cambridge 1998.
A. Karivieri, "The So-Called Library of Hadrian and the Tetraconch Church in Athens" in Post-Herulian Athens, 89-114
E. Kitzinger, Byzantine Art in the Making. Cambridge, MA 1977.
R. Krautheimer, Three Christian Capitals. Berkeley 1983.
K. Lehmann, “The Dome of Heaven”, AB 27 (1945), 1-28.
H.-P. L’Orange, H.-P., Art Form and Civic Life in the Later Roman Empire. Princeton 1965.
R. A. Markus, “How in the world do places become Holy?” JECS 2 (1994), 257-271.
H. Maguire, Earth and Ocean: The Terrestrial World in Early Byzantine Art. University Park, PA 1987.
H. Maguire, “Christians, Pagans, and the Representations of Nature,” Begegnung von Heidentum und Christentum im spätantiken Ägypten. Reggisberg 1993. 131-160.
H. Maguire, “Magic and Geometry in Early Christian Floor Mosaics and Textiles,” in Andrias: Herbert Hunger zum 80 Geburtstag. W. Hörandner, J. Koder and O. Kresten eds. Jahrbuch der österreichischen Byzantinistik 44 (1994), 265-274.
H. Maguire, “Magic and the Christian Image,” in Byzantine Magic. H. Maguire ed.. 51-72.
T. Mathews, “Cracks in Lehmann’s ‘Dome of Heaven,’” Source: Notes in the History of Art 1 (1982), 12-16.
K.E. McVey, “Domed Churches as Microcosm: Literary Roots of an Architectural Symbol,” DOP 37 (1983), 91-121.
R. Rothaus, Corinth: The First City of Greece. Leiden 2000.
J.M. Spieser, Urban and Religious Space in Late Antiquity and Early Byzantium, (Aldershot, 2001)
F. Trombley, “Paganism in the Greek World at the End of Antiquity: The Case of Rural Anatolia and Greece,” HTR 78 (1985), 327-352.
D. Trout, “Town, Countryside, and Christianization,” in Shifting Frontiers in Late Antiquity. R. W. Mathisen and H.S. Sivan eds. Brookfield, VT 1996. 175-186.
O. von Simpson, Sacred Fortress: Byzantine Art and Statecraft in Ravenna. Chicago 1948.
K. Weitzmann ed., The Age of Spirituality: Late Antique and Early Christian Art, Third to Seventh Century. New York 1979.
A. Wharton, Refiguring the Post Classical City : Dura Europos, Jerash, Jerusalem, and Ravenna. New York 1995.
L.M. White, Building God’s House in the Roman World. Baltimore 1990.
G. Vikan, Byzantine Pigrimage Art. Washington, DC 1984.
Culture, Ritual, and Christianization:
J. Baldovin, The Urban Character of Christian Worship. OCA 2??. Rome 1987.
T. Barnes, “Christians and the Theater,” in Roman Theater and Society. E. Togo Salmon Papers, 161-180.
P. Bradshaw, The Search for the Origins of the Christian Worship. Oxford 1992.
P. Brown, Body and Society: Men, Women, and Sexual Renuntiation in Early Christianity. New York 1988.
P. Brown, Power and Persuasion in Late Antiquity: Towards a Christian Empire. Princeton 1992.
D. Caner, Wandering, Begging Monks: Spiritual Authority and the Promotion of Monasticism in Late Antiquity. Berkeley 2002.
S.A. Harvey, “The Stylite’s Liturgy: Ritual and Religious Identity in Late Antiquity,” JECS 6 (1998), 523-539.
S. R. Holman, The Hungry are Dying: Beggars and Bishops in Roman Cappadocia. Oxford 2001.
B. Leyerle, Theatrical Shows and Ascetic Lives: John Chrysostom’s Attack on Spiritual Marriage, Berkeley 2001.
R. Lim, Public Disputation, Power, and Social Order in Late Antiquity. Berkeley 1995.
S. MacCormack, Art and Ceremony in Late Antiquity. Berkeley 1981.
M. McCormick, Eternal Victory: Triumphal rulership in Late Antiquity, Byzantium, and the Medieval West. Paris 1987.
R. Ousterhout. ed., The Blessings of Pilgrimage. Chicago 1990.
E. Patlagean, Pauverté économique et pauverté sociale à Byzance, 4e-7e siècles. Paris 1977.
E. Patlagean, Structure sociale, famille, chrétienne à Byzance: IVe- XIe siècle. London 1981.
M. Salzman, On Roman Time: The Codex-Calendar of 354 and the Rhythms of Urban Life in Late Antiquity. Berkeley 1991.
R. F. Taft, The Byzantine Rite: A Short History. Collegeville 1992.
P. Veyne, Bread and Circuses: Historical Sociology and Political Pluralism. trans. B.
Pearce. London 1990.
Did I mention a mass of historians!
I know Gibbon has been corrected by everyone and his dog, but there's more to historiography than getting one's facts straight. Thucidides and Tacitus (greatest historians ever? What do you think?) are full of errors and are often unfair. Kagan's newish book debunks Thucy on a lot. I have read them both.
But a thousand years from now, people will still be reading Thucy. Kagan will be exactly what his name suggests.
Who's Kagan?
Thucydides is a better political historian in the sense that, when reading it, there's a definite agenda -- and that's okay.
Herodotus is a historian much more of the R.G. Collingwood and Jacques LeGoff order. Herodotus got a lot of things wrong, but he was still using logic and reason in an attempt to understand the histories from various Mediteranean cultures; or, essentially he tried to understand understanding, or understand the memory of other cultures.
I don't know if Gibbon has so much been "corrected." As you suggest, subsequent generations require a new perspective on events from the past. We can't run around looking at the Roman world with 1776 British goggles on.
Paul Zanker has a good art history book out there titled, The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus. Read it JJ -- I heard art history is the discipline the chicks tend to gravitate towards.
Here's Kagan. I'll look up Wanker, but I know a bit about that already. When in college I had roommates in the Arch school. Learned a lot from them then and bought a few of their texts are read them over and over.
Here's another guy that was wrong a lot but valuable.
MFT saw that JJ was not moving towards the Mountain of History, so.....well, the rest is History.
...a thousand years from now, people will still be reading Thucy. Kagan will be exactly what his name suggests.
This reminds me of what a commentator said after a couple of us in a panel used Frederick Jackson Turner's frontier thesis (1893) as a catalyst to discuss Anglo-Americans who, in my case, partook in the "Frontier experience" but at a more provincial level. Each one of us read our paper (naturally), and then the commentator took the podium, addressed the graying audience, and said, "I was a student of a student of a student who studied under Turner..."
I guess that was supposed to mean something.
Then he began to critique those who critique Turner (I think his comments were directed at me), and essentially said that critics of Turner know nothing of context, and Turner is so important that even 113 years after he delivered his paper at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893, we're still talking about it. We ran out of time during the panel for me to inquire as to whether this Turnerian was directing his comments at me; and if so, to let him know that I admired Turner, and the last thing Turner wanted was disciples -- he'd much rather produce graduate students who were into inquiry.
The latter statement isn't as profound as academics would like to suggest. So what if Turner or Gibbon or Thucydides or Herodotus were the first to make these statements? They happened to do good work, and they just happened -- as they say -- to be in the right place at the right time. I don't think the focus of humanities scholarship should be "I'M FIRST MOTHERFUCKERS!!!" But maybe that's just an engineering thing...
you history guys like sloppy seconds?
Okay, not responding to that -- at least you're consistent, JJ.
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