Geography and Ethnography: Perceptions of the World in Pre-Modern Societies

Kurt A. Raaflaub, Richard J. A. Talbert

John Wiley & Sons, Dec 17, 2009 - History - 376 pages

This fascinating volume brings together leading specialists, who have analyzed the thoughts and records documenting the worldviews of a wide range of pre-modern societies.

• Presents evidence from across the ages; from antiquity through to the Age of Discovery
• Provides cross-cultural comparison of ancient societies around the globe, from the Chinese to the Incas and Aztecs, from the Greeks and Romans to the peoples of ancient India
• Explores newly discovered medieval Islamic materials
  

Contents

• 1 Introduction: 1
• 2 Where the Black Antelope Roam Dharma and Human Geography in India: 9
• 3 Humans Demons Gods and Their Worlds The Sacred and Scientific Cosmologies of India: 32
• 4 Structured Perceptions of Real and Imagined Landscapes in Early China: 43
• 5 Nonary Cosmography in Ancient China: 64
• 6 Knowledge of Other Cultures in Chinas Early Empires: 74
• 7 The Mississippian Peoples Worldview: 89
• 8 Aztec Geography and Spatial Imagination: 108
• 9 Inca Worldview: 128
• 10 Masters of the Four Corners of the Heavens Views of the Universe in Early Mesopotamian Writings: 147
• 11 The World and the Geography of Otherness in Pharaonic Egypt: 169
• 12 On Earth as in Heaven The Apocalyptic Vision of World Geography from Urzeit to Endzeit according to the Book of Jubilees: 182
• 13 I Know the Number of the Sand and the Measure of the Sea Geography and Difference in the Early Greek World: 197
• 14 Continents Climates and Cultures Greek Theories of Global Structure: 215
• 15 The Geographical Narrative of Strabo of Amasia: 236
• 16 The Roman Worldview Beyond Recovery?: 252
• 17 The Medieval Islamic Worldview Arabic Geography in Its Historical Context: 273
• 18 The Book of Curiosities An EleventhCentury Egyptian View of the Lands of the Infidels: 291
• 19 Geography and Ethnography in Medieval Europe Classical Traditions and Contemporary Concerns: 311
• 20 Europeans Plot the Wider World 15001750: 330
• Index: 344

About the author

Kurt A. Raaflaub is David Herlihy University Professor, and Professor of Classics and History, at Brown University. His numerous publications include The Discovery of Freedom (2004) and Origins of Democracy in Ancient Greece (2007, co-authored with Josiah Ober and Robert Wallace). He is also the editor of Social Struggles in Archaic Rome (Blackwell, 2005), and War and Peace in the Ancient World (Blackwell, 2007), and co-editor of A Companion to Archaic Greece (Wiley-Blackwell, 2009).

Richard J.A. Talbert is William Rand Kenan, Jr, Professor of History and Classics at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is the editor of the Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World (2000), and co-editor of Space in the Roman World: Its Perception and Presentation (2004), as well as of Cartography in Antiquity and the Middle Ages: Fresh Perspectives, New Methods (2008). His major study Rome’s World: The Peutinger Map Reconsidered will appear in 2010.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Geography and Ethnography: Perceptions of the World in Pre-Modern Societies; Ancient World: Comparative Histories
• Editors: Kurt A. Raaflaub, Richard J. A. Talbert
• Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, 2009
• ISBN: 1444315668, 9781444315660
• Length: 376 pages
• Subjects: History / Ancient / General; History / General