Power Search
Low Price Guarantee
We Take School POs
The Invention of Greek Ethnography: From Homer to Herodotus
Contributor(s): Skinner, Joseph E. (Author)

View larger image

 ISBN: 0199793603     ISBN-13: 9780199793600
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
OUR PRICE: $161.50  

Binding Type: Hardcover - See All Available Formats & Editions
Published: September 2012
Qty:
Additional Information
BISAC Categories:
- History | Ancient - Greece
- Social Science | Anthropology - Cultural & Social
- Literary Collections | Ancient, Classical & Medieval
Dewey: 305.800
LCCN: 2011017482
Physical Information: 0.9" H x 6.3" W x 9.3" L (1.35 lbs) 368 pages
Themes:
- Chronological Period - Ancient (To 499 A.D.)
- Cultural Region - Greece
Features: Bibliography, Illustrated, Index, Maps
Review Citations: Choice 03/01/2013
 
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc.
Publisher Description:
Greek knowledge of and interest in foreign peoples is commonly believed to have developed in conjunction with a wider sense of Greekness that emerged during the Hellenic encounter with Achaemenid Persia during the late sixth to early fifth centuries BC. The dramatic nature of this clash of
cultures is widely thought to have laid the foundations for prose descriptions of foreign lands and peoples by causing previously vague imaginings to crystallize into a diametric opposition between Hellene and barbarian.

The Invention of Greek Ethnography challenges the legitimacy of this narrative. Drawing on recent advances in ethnographic and cultural studies and material culture-based analyses of the ancient Mediterranean, Joseph Skinner argues that ethnographic discourse was already widespread throughout the
archaic Greek world long before the invention of ethnographic prose, incorporating not only texts but also a wide range of iconographic and archaeological materials. The reconstruction of this ethnography before ethnography demonstrates that discourses of identity played a vital role in defining
what it meant to be Greek in the first place. The development of ethnographic writing and historiography is shown to be rooted in a wider process of positioning that was continually unfurling across time, as groups and individuals scattered across the Mediterranean world sought to locate
themselves in relation to both the narratives of the past and other people. The Invention of Greek Ethnography provides a shift in critical perspective that will have significant implications for our understanding of how Greek identity came into being, the manner in which early discourses of
difference should be conceptualized, and the way in which narrative history should ultimately be interpreted.
 
Customer ReviewsSubmit your own review
 
To tell a friend about this book, you must Sign In First!