With this volume, Greimas gives voice to the cultural memory of his people. He is both storyteller and explicator, deciphering the symbolic world of Lithuanian mythology. This first English translation of Apie Dievus ir zmones is a brilliant convergence of Greimas's historical and folkloric studies. Greimas examines the origins of ancient deities; discusses the concepts of life and death, fate and fortune; looks at codes used by farmers to organize systems of mutual obligations and implicit contracts; examines pranks and games associated with agrarian seasonal changes; and discusses the semantic reconstruction of the names and functions of several deities. Emphasizing the historic dimension of myth analysis, Greimas assembles concepts and deities from scattered texts, integrating them into their Lithuanian cultural context. This study of mythology is his archeology of culture.
A rigorously and imaginatively researched anthology of classical literature, bringing together one hundred stories from the rich diversity of the literary canon of ancient Greece and Rome. Striking a balance between the 'classic classic' (such as Dryden's translation of the Aeneid) and the less familiar or expected, Of Gods and Men ranges from the epic poetry of Homer to the histories of Arrian and Diodorus Siculus and the sprawling Theogony of Hesiod; from the tragedies of Aeschylus and Euripides to the biographies of Suetonius and Plutarch and the pen portraits of Theophrastus; and from the comedies of Plautus to the fictions of Petronius and Apuleius. Of Gods and Men is embellished by translations from writers as diverse as Queen Elizabeth I (Boethius), Percy Bysshe Shelley (Plato), Walter Pater (Apuleius's Golden Ass), Lawrence of Arabia (Homer's Odyssey), Louis MacNeice (Aeschylus's Agamemnon) and Ted Hughes (Ovid's Pygmalion), as well as a number of accomplished translations by Daisy Dunn herself.
Details the true story of seven monks kidnapped from a Trappist monastery in war-torn Algeria to be used as negotiation tools to free imprisoned terrorists and whose severed heads were found in a tree two months later.
The first in a gripping new historical fantasy series that intertwines Irish mythology with real-life history, The Children of Gods and Fighting Men is the thrilling debut novel in the Gael Song series by Shauna Lawless. They think they've killed the last of us... 981 AD. The Viking King of Dublin is dead. His young widow, Gormflaith, has ambitions for her son – and herself – but Ireland is a dangerous place and kings tend not to stay kings for long. Gormflaith also has a secret. She is one of the Fomorians, an immortal race who can do fire-magic. She has kept her powers hidden at all costs, for there are other immortals in this world – like the Tuatha Dé Danann, a race of warriors who are sworn to kill Fomorians. Fódla is one of the Tuatha Dé Danann with the gift of healing. Her kind dwell hidden in a fortress, forbidden to live amongst the mortals. Fódla agrees to help her kin by going to spy on Brian Boru, a powerful man who aims to be High King of Ireland. She finds a land on the brink of war – a war she is desperate to stop. However, preventing the loss of mortal lives is not easy with Ireland in turmoil and the Fomorians now on the rise... Reviewers on The Children of Gods and Fighting Men 'Lawless blends fantasy with historical fiction to great effect.' SFX 'A novel that celebrates the extraordinary history and cultural traditions of Ireland while giving voice to the women who helped shape it. Highly recommended.' Lucy Holland 'An excellent read.' Mark Lawrence 'Highlander meets The Last Kingdom... I was hooked from page one.' Anthony Ryan 'Gripping and beautiful. A Celtic Last Kingdom with wild magic and fierce heroines.' Anna Smith Spark 'A beguiling blend of fantasy, history, and politics.' D.K. Fields 'A vividly written story that makes the ancient past feel contemporary.' Joseph O'Connor 'Rife with atmosphere and armies, magic and compelling characters, it swept me along and refused to be put down.' H.M. Long 'An epic historical fantasy that weaves myth and history into a sprawling tale of magic, intrigue, and war. Absorbing and richly detailed.' Ian Green 'With all the complex political machinations of A Song of Ice and Fire and the bloody battles of The Warlord Chronicles, it's ideal for fans of both.' Stephen Aryan 'An atmospheric journey into a thrilling historical fantasy world.' R.J. Barker
In their wide-ranging interpretation of the religion of ancient Egypt, Françoise Dunand and Christiane Zivie-Coche explore how, over a period of roughly 3500 years, the Egyptians conceptualized their relations with the gods. Drawing on the insights of anthropology, the authors discuss such topics as the identities, images, and functions of the gods; rituals and liturgies; personal forms of piety expressing humanity's need to establish a direct relation with the divine; and the afterlife, a central feature of Egyptian religion. That religion, the authors assert, was characterized by the remarkable continuity of its ritual practices and the ideas of which they were an expression.Throughout, Dunand and Zivie-Coche take advantage of the most recent archaeological discoveries and scholarship. Gods and Men in Egypt is unique in its coverage of Egyptian religious expression in the Ptolemaic and Roman periods. Written with nonspecialist readers in mind, it is largely concerned with the continuation of Egypt's traditional religion in these periods, but it also includes fascinating accounts of Judaism in Egypt and the appearance and spread of Christianity there.
Eons ago, the Earth was a battlefield. Mighty armies clashed, led by giant warriors meticulously skilled in the art of combat. These wars would shape man's destiny and live on for centuries in legend, song and religious lore -- brutal and terrible conflicts that began lifetimes earlier on another planet. In the astonishing third volume of Zecharia Sitchin's The Earth Chronicles, the internationally renowned scholar parts the mists of myth and time to return to the violent beginnings of humanity -- employing ancient text, religious documents and archaeological findings to reconstruct epic events that support the existence of extraterrestrial "god" who once set nation against nation, army against army, and man against man.
The world turned upside down in 1929, starting in the United States. As the Great Depression shook the nation, so-called "gods" began to appear along Route 66, and quickly grew in number. With humankind slowly dying out, history then took a different course... This is the story "of gods and men," set in the year 2047.
Humans are herded like sheep for the slaughter. And their only hope for survival lies with a team who just left the planet. Following their successful mission to destroy the slaver ring in New York City, Wic and the members of Phantom Team pass through the Antarctic's origin ring and find themselves deep in the heart of the Androchidan Empire. But as the scope of the alien specie's operation becomes apparent, Phantom Team realizes they can't standby as humanity is culled into submission. Efforts must be made to slow the enemy's progress, if not stop it altogether. Under Wic's leadership, the team devises a plan to infiltrate and neutralize part of the Androchidan's operation. Allies are made, and resources are acquired. But when enemy spies find evidence of collusion, it is only a matter for time before the Phantoms' hopes of thwarting the enemy are dashed. Will Wic and his elite team of warriors succeed in reversing the tide of the Androchidan invasion? Or will they succumb to the unrelenting power of the most notorious slaver operation in the galaxy? Join bestselling authors Christopher Hopper and J.N. Chaney as the Ruins of the Earth hit series continues with Book 2: Gods and Men. Read what fans call "the best military sci-fi of the year," and "Galaxy's Edge meets Expeditionary Force."
Is mathematics a discovery or an invention? Do numbers truly exist? What sort of reality do formulas describe? The complexity of mathematics - its abstract rules and obscure symbols - can seem very distant from the everyday. There are those things that are real and present, it is supposed, and then there are mathematical concepts: creations of our mind, mysterious tools for those unengaged with the world. Yet, from its most remote history and deepest purpose, mathematics has served not just as a way to understand and order, but also as a foundation for the reality it describes. In this elegant book, mathematician and philosopher Paolo Zellini offers a brief cultural and intellectual history of mathematics, ranging widely from the paradoxes of ancient Greece to the sacred altars of India, from Mesopotamian calculus to our own contemporary obsession with algorithms. Masterful and illuminating, The Mathematics of the Gods and the Algorithms of Men transforms our understanding of mathematical thinking, showing that it is inextricably linked with the philosophical and the religious as well as the mundane - and, indeed, with our own very human experience of the universe.
