The Socratic movement

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Bertram Wyatt-Brown

Extending his investigation into the ethical life of the white American South beyond what he wrote in Southern Honor (1982), Bertram Wyatt-Brown explores three major themes in southern history: the political aspects of the South's code of honor, the increasing prominence of Protestant faith in white southerners' lives, and the devastating impact of war, defeat, and an angry loss of confidence during the post-Civil War era. This eloquent and richly textured study first demonstrates the psychological complexity of race relations, drawing new and provocative comparisons between American slave oppression and the Nazi concentration camp experience. The author then reveals how the rhetoric and rituals of honor affected the Revolutionary generation and--through a study of Andrew Jackson, dueling, and other demonstrations of manhood--how early American politicians won or lost popularity. In perhaps the most subtle and intriguing section of the book, he discloses the interconnections of honor and religious belief and practice. Finally, exploring the effects of war and defeat on former Confederates, Wyatt-Brown suggests that the rise of violent racism following the Civil War had significant links to the shame of military defeat and the spurious invocation of religious convictions. --Publisher description.

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Andrew Erskine

"Troy linked Greece and Rome. It was at once the subject of the greatest of Greek poems and the mother city of the Romans. It gave the Romans a place in the mythical past of the Greeks, it gave Greeks a way of approaching Rome, and it gave the emperor Augustus, descendant of Aeneas, a suitably elevated ancestry. In this book Andrew Erskine examines the role and meaning of Troy in the changing relationship between Greeks and Romans, as Rome is transformed from a minor Italian city into a Mediterranean superpower. In contrast to earlier studies the emphasis here is on the Greek rather than the Roman perspective. The book seeks to understand the significance of Rome's Trojan origins for the Greeks by considering the place of Troy and Trojans in Greek culture. It moves beyond the more familiar spheres of art and literature to explore the countless, overlapping, local traditions, the stories that cities told about themselves, a world often neglected by scholars."--BOOK JACKET.

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Jean Racine

Cleofile. Quoi ? Vous allez combattre un roi dont la puissance semble forcer le ciel a prendre sa defense, sous qui toute l'Asie a vu tomber ses rois, et qui tient la fortune attachee a ses lois ? Mon frere, ouvrez les yeux pour connoitre Alexandre : voyez de toutes parts les trones mis en cendre, les peuples asservis, et les rois enchaines ; et prevenez les maux qui les ont entraines. Taxile. Voulez-vous que frappe d'une crainte si basse, je presente la tete au joug qui nous menace, et que j'entende dire aux peuples indiens que j'ai forge moi-meme et leurs fers et les miens ? Quitterai-je Porus ? Trahirai-je ces princes que rassemble le soin d'affranchir nos provinces, et qui, sans balancer sur un si noble choix, sauront egalement vivre ou mourir en rois ? En voyez-vous un seul qui sans rien entreprendre se laisse terrasser au seul nom d'Alexandre, et le croyant deja maitre de l'univers, aille, esclave empresse, lui demander des fers ?

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Ralph L. Beals

Cheran, situated in west-central Mexico, was one of the most isolated mountain towns until about 1940, when a paved highway connected it with a highway serving Guadalajara and Mexico City. With Cheran poised for rapid modernization, Beals and other anthropologists arrived in 1940 to begin an intensive study of the Tarascan community and its five thousand inhabitants before their lives were inextricably altered by modern life. After two years of gathering data about Cheran geography, agriculture, manufacturing, food use, government, religious ceremonies, fiestas, and general lifeways, Beals published their findings as Publication No. 2 of the Smithsonian Institution's Institute of Social Anthropology. Cheran is a valuable resource for today's anthropologists, providing a solid, empirical foundation for comparison to similar communities and for tests of acculturative theories. This paperback edition contains a follow-up introduction the author wrote in 1973 and a new foreword by George M. Foster that discusses the impact of Beals's groundbreaking work on further studies of Cheran and similar communities.