Grèce

On Saturday 9th September, 1922, the victorious Turkish cavalry rode into Smyrna, the richest and most cosmopolitan city in the Ottoman Empire. What happened over the next two weeks must rank as one of the most compelling human dramas of the twentieth century. Almost two million people were caught up in a disaster of truly epic proportions. PARADISE LOST is told with the narrative verve that has made Giles Milton a bestselling historian. It unfolds through the memories of the survivors, many of them interviewed for the first time, and the eyewitness accounts of those who found themselves caught up in one of the greatest catastrophes of the modern age.

Tom Stone's "Patmos" describes all the island's highpoints, from the medieval Monastery of St. John, justly famous for its library and beautiful view, and the medieval Monastery of the Apocalypse, containing the grotto where St. John received his revelations, to the multi-colored stones of Lambi in the north and the fine sand of Psiliamo in the south, extends his description to the small nearby islands of Lipsoi and Arkoi, and even tells the reader how to go on to Ephesus, in Turkey.

"Macedonia is a problem. It is such a problem that the French named fruit salad after it: macedoine des fruits. Four wars have been fought over it in the last eighty years, each bloodier than the previous one. They were fought to determine not only where exactly Macedonia is, but who lives there and in what state they should live." With this sense of historic complexity in mind, Will Myer travelled to the troubled Balkans in autumn 1994 and the following spring. His aim was to discover the political and human reality of a region beset by conflict and controversy, fought over for centuries by rival powers. In particular, he sought to explore the true nature of Macedonian identity, or rather of a multiple identity. Travelling in Turkey, Greece, Bulgaria and the newly independent Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Myer encounters a bewildering array of political and cultural opinions--Orthodox Christians and Muslims, Communists and nationalists, warlords and modernisers. His investigations take him to Orthodox weddings and Easter parades, political meetings and religious ceremonies. He encounters widows and witches, dervishes and mystics. Throughout, he remains fascinated by the human dimension of Macedonia's deep-seated identity crisis. More than a simple travelogue, People of the Storm God casts light on the troubled history of Macedonia and its unique melting pot of politics, religion and ethnicity. Compared to the work of Patrick Leigh Fermor, this book evocatively reveals the extraordinary cultural diversity of the Balkans and the weight of history borne by its different peoples.

Hades, king of the Underworld, has his eyes on a potential bride - Persephone. When he forces her to live with him, Persephone’s mother, the goddess of nature, is not happy. Soon, Earth falls into ruin. In order to set things right, the Greek gods and goddesses must make a compromise. Learn Persephone’s story in this modern, graphic retelling of a classic Greek myth.

Troppo a lungo gli antichi greci sono rimasti immobili su un piedistallo, fissati in immagini senza tempo. In queste pagine, invece, prenderanno vita, in tutta la loro prosaica quotidianità! Tramite aneddoti curiosi, divertenti e commoventi – nascosti in alcuni tra i più importanti testi letterari della classicità – l’autrice ci descrive la vita quotidiana dell’epoca come non l’avremmo mai immagina­ta. Incontreremo Pericle, Socrate, Euripide ed Eschilo, ma anche tanti semplici cittadini, mentre sono alle prese con il lavoro, le relazioni sociali e personali, mentre fanno bisboccia, litigano, s’ingannano e s’innamorano, in una città che pulsa di vita, proprio come l’Atene di oggi.

The surprising story of how Greek classics are being pressed into use in contemporary China to support the regime's political agendaAs improbable as it may sound, an illuminating way to understand today's China and how it views the West is to look at the astonishing ways Chinese intellectuals are interpreting-or is it misinterpreting?-the Greek classics. In Plato Goes to China, Shadi Bartsch offers a provocative look at Chinese politics and ideology by exploring Chinese readings of Plato, Aristotle, Thucydides, and other ancient writers. She shows how Chinese thinkers have dramatically recast the Greek classics to support China's political agenda, diagnose the ills of the West, and assert the superiority of China's own Confucian classical tradition. In a lively account that ranges from the Jesuits to Xi Jinping, Bartsch traces how the fortunes of the Greek classics have changed in China since the seventeenth century. Before the Tiananmen Square crackdown, the Chinese typically read Greek philosophy and political theory in order to promote democratic reform or discover the secrets of the success of Western democracy and science. No longer. Today, many Chinese intellectuals use these texts to critique concepts such as democracy, citizenship, and rationality. Plato's "Noble Lie," in which citizens are kept in their castes through deception, is lauded; Aristotle's Politics is seen as civic brainwashing; and Thucydides's criticism of Athenian democracy is applied to modern America. What do antiquity's "dead white men" have left to teach? By uncovering the unusual ways Chinese thinkers are answering that question, Plato Goes to China opens a surprising new window on China today.

The festival of the Panathenaia, held in Athens every summer to celebrate the birthday of the city's goddess, Athena, was the setting for performances of the Homeric Iliad and Odyssey by professional reciters or "rhapsodes." The works of Plato are our main surviving source of information about these performances. Through his references, a crucial phase in the history of the Homeric tradition can be reconstructed. Through Plato's eyes, the "staging" of Homer in classical Athens can once again become a virtual reality. This book examines the overall testimony of Plato as an expert about the cultural legacy of these Homeric performances. Plato's fine ear for language--in this case the technical language of high-class artisans like rhapsodes--picks up on a variety of authentic expressions that echo the talk of rhapsodes as they once practiced their art. Highlighted among the works of Plato are the Ion, the Timaeus, and the Critias. Some experts who study the Timaeus have suggested that Plato must have intended this masterpiece, described by his characters as a humnos, to be a tribute to Athena. The metaphor of weaving, implicit in humnos and explicit in the peplos or robe that was offered to the goddess at the Panathenaia, applies also to Homeric poetry: it too was pictured as a humnos, destined for eternal re-weaving on the festive occasion of Athena's eternally self-renewing birthday.

Among the most influential books in Western civilization, Aristotle's Poetics is really a treatise on fine art. In it are mentioned not only epic and dithyrambic poetry, but tragedy, comedy, and flute and lyre playing. Aristotle's conception of tragedy, i.e. the depiction of a heroic action that arouses pity and fear in the spectators and brings about a catharsis of those emotions, has helped perpetuate the Greek ideal of drama to the present day. Similarly, his dictums concerning unity of time and place, the necessity for a play to have a beginning, middle, and end, the idea of the tragic flaw and other concepts have had enormous influence down through the ages.
Throughout the work, Aristotle reveals not only a great intellect analyzing the nature of poetry, music, and drama, but also a down-to-earth understanding of the practical problems facing the poet and playwright. Now, in this inexpensive edition of the Poetics, readers can enjoy the seminal insights of one of the greatest minds in human history as he sets about laying the foundations of critical thought about the arts.