A history of private life : From pagan Rome to Byzantium

First of the widely celebrated and sumptuously illustrated series, this book reveals in intimate detail what life was really like in the ancient world. Behind the vast panorama of the pagan Roman empire, the reader discovers the intimate daily lives of citizens and slaves--from concepts of manhood and sexuality to marriage and the family, the roles of women, chastity and contraception, techniques of childbirth, homosexuality, religion, the meaning of virtue, and the separation of private and public spaces. The emergence of Christianity in the West and the triumph of Christian morality with its emphasis on abstinence, celibacy, and austerity is startlingly contrasted with the profane and undisciplined private life of the Byzantine Empire. Using illuminating motifs, the authors weave a rich, colorful fabric ornamented with the results of new research and the broad interpretations that only masters of the subject can provide."

Kirkus评论

Debut volume in English of a five-volume French masterpiece that re-creates history through the eyes of a fly on the wall watching humans at their most intimate domestic moments--in their ""private lives."" This absorbingly illustrated series is intent on presenting the past with both physical immediacy and with as little academic fuss as possible. The illustrations in the first volume have a subjective penetration of the text that is like an inner musical accompaniment. This valume does not pretend to roll out a complete rug of civilization from Rome to Byzantium, nor is the series--which also covers feudal Europe to the Renaissance, the Renaissance to the Enlightenment, the French Revolution to the Great War, and WW II to the present--a reprocessing of other histories. It leans toward cultural anthropology, without towering pedantry. Few readers, even of I, Claudius, will have experienced pagan Rome with quite the freshness evident here. One contributor, Editor Veyne, begins his history with Rome rather than Greece because the ""Greeks are in Rome, are the essence of Rome."" If Romans had too many mouths to feed, they gave away their children at birth or left them exposed to die. Some fathers thought it better to do away with a child than to disinherit it. The prevailing morality taught that ""fathers should love their children as bearers of the family name and perpetuators of its grandeur. Tenderness was misplaced."" Rhetoric was the society game: ""Suppose that a law holds that a seduced woman may choose either to have her seducer condemned to death or to marry him, and, further, that in one night a man rapes two women, one of whom demands his death, while the other insists on marrying him."" Other chapters cover Judaism and early Christianity (including the birth of Christian innerness as opposed to Roman body awareness), private life and domestic architecture in Roman Africa, the early Middle Ages in the West, and Byzantium in the 10th and 11th centuries. Always, the accent is on privacy in the household, in family feelings, in sex, birth and death. History-to-touch. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

《书目》(Booklist)书评

The first volume in a new series that will present an ambitious portrayal of human life in the West, from classical Rome to the twentieth century. Although the coverage is not intended to be absolutely complete nor necessarily contiguous, the series' historical approach is ripe with the possibility of examining everyday life in matters both mundane and exalted. The contributors to the current volume ascribe to the annalist tradition as they study the Roman world and the early medieval period in Europe, revealing the hidden lives that general history has glossed over. Among the subjects investigated in depth are Roman sexuality, patterns of religious worship, domestic structures in Roman towns in Africa, and the concepts of the body and inner life during the Byzantine Empire. Notes, bibliography; index. JB. 390'.009 Manners and customs Collected works / Family History Collected works / Civilization History Collected works / Europe Social conditions Collected works [CIP] 86-18286

Choice 评论

This book is a remarkably fine example of the new social history based on the solid evidence of philology and archaeology. It is the first of a handsome five-volume series that aims to show readers ``how people lived and behaved in earlier times,'' and it has fulfilled its purpose admirably. Flavio Biondo's Roma Triumphans (1460) included public, private, religious, and military antiquities; later, separate manuals were issued for each category. Consequently, Veyne's edition on private antiquities follows an old tradition, but with quite a difference! The aim of A History of Private Life is not coverage but insight. One gets a vivid impression of the lives of people in the past through topics like these: tranquilizers (in the Roman Empire); the new marital fidelity (in later antiquity); how the Domus worked (in Roman Africa); violence and death (in the early Middle Ages); and private space (in Byzantium). Each section is authored by recognized authorities, four by French scholars not otherwise available in English. It does not cover the Roman Republic of Greece, much less the Ancient Near East; but that is simply another aspect of not striving for ``coverage.'' Excellent bibliographies, superb illustrations with thoughtful captions, and superior binding and paper make this an impressive work from every point of view. Highly recommended for all levels.-R.I. Frank, University of California, Irvine

《图书馆杂志》(Library Journal )书评

These volumes, edited by Philippe Aries and Georges Duby, are aimed at both the scholar and layperson who wonder how people lived and behaved from ancient times to the present: "their thoughts, their feelings, their bodies, their attitudes, their habits and habitations, their codes, their marks, and their signs." The focus is on western European life, primarily French. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

可借阅:*

链接这些题名

已订购

摘要

摘要

评论 (4)

Kirkus评论

《书目》(Booklist)书评

Choice 评论

《图书馆杂志》(Library Journal )书评

目录