JLS (jlsjlsjls) wrote,
JLS
jlsjlsjls
  • Music: Chiwoniso: "Rebel Woman"

Some weekend reading ...

Managed to squeeze in reading my copy of Terry Jones' Barbarians this weekend ... not difficult to do since once started it was just too delicious to put down. I'd already seen the BBC TV series that the book accompanies, but unlike his "Medieval Lives" where the book just basically echoes the series narrative and doesn't go much further, this volume expands on the filmed programs, offering more depth to the events and cultures of the time and the motivations behind each Roman conquest (usually money). While I'd been aware since high school that a great deal of history revision happened during the 19th century and during the Renaissance, I hadn't come across much information about the more ancient spin doctoring (beyond my own ability to notice that some things just didn't really make sense) until Mr. Jones decided to resurrect his history degree and become the much-needed popular PR man for what has been discovered and is still being discovered. Not deep reading, but not shallow either, and certainly enough of an overview to give one an appetite for wanting to know more about history that wasn't written by the victors ... a decent-looking bibliography provides leads to more information.

The 4-part series is also well worth watching ... Jones visits quite a few European and Middle Eastern archaeological sites and museums and interviews the people who've been doing the work of digging up, researching, and reconstructing what really happened way back then.

Some interesting websites from the small electronic portion of the bibliography, many sharing collections and translations of ancient texts:

Perseus Digital Library
The Internet Classics Archive
Internet History Sourcebooks Project
Lacus Curtius
Early Church Fathers: Additional Texts
Encyclopædia Iranica
Sasanika
ArchNet: Classical Archaeology Links
Christian Classics Ethereal Library
Suda Online
Livius.org: Roman Empire
Women's Life in Greece & Rome
Tags: reading
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