Bestselling author Norman Cantor delivers this compact but magisterial survey of the ancient world-from the birth of Sumerian civilization around 3500 BC in the Tigris-Euphrates valley (present-day Iraq) to the fall of the Roman Empire in AD 476. In Antiquity, Cantor covers such subjects as Classical Greece, Judaism, the founding of Christianity, and the triumph and decline of Rome.
In this fascinating and comprehensive analysis, the author explores social and cultural history, as well as the political and economic aspects of his narrative. He explains leading themes in religion and philosophy and discusses the environment, population, and public health. With his signature authority and insight, Cantor highlights the great books and ideas of antiquity that continue to influence culture today.
In this ground-breaking work, Norman Cantor explains how our current notion of the Middle Ages—with its vivid images of wars, tournaments, plagues, saints and kings, knights and ladies—was born in the twentieth century. The medieval world was not simply excavated through systematic research. It had to be conceptually created: it had to be invented, and this is the story of that invention.
Cantor focuses on the lives and works of twenty of the great medievalists of this century, demonstrating how the events of their lives, and their spiritual and emotional outlooks, influenced their interpretations of the Middle Ages. He makes their scholarship an intensely personal and passionate exercise, full of color and controversy, displaying the strong personalities and creative minds that brought new insights about the past.
In 1963, Norman F. Cantor published his breakthrough narrative history of the Middle Ages. Here is a significant revision, update, and expansion of that work.
The Civilization of the Middle Ages incorporates current research, recent trends in interpretation, and novel perspectives, especially on the foundations of the Middle Ages and the Later Middle Ages of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. A sharper focus on social history, Jewish history, women's roles in society, and popular religion and heresy distinguish the book. While the first and last sections of the book are almost entirely new and many additions have been incorporated in the intervening sections, Cantor has retained the powerful narrative flow that made earlier editions so accessible.
'No better explanation of medievalism is available to the general reader.''Booklist
In 1963 Norman F. Cantor published his breakthrough narrative history of the Middle Ages. Here is a significant revision, update, and expansion of that work.
The Civilization of the Middle Ages incorporates newer research and novel perspectives, especially on the foundations of the Middle Ages and the late Middle Ages of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. A sharper focus on social history, Jewish history, women's roles in society, and popular religion and heresy distinguish the book. While the first and last sections of the book are almost entirely new and many additions have been incorporated in the intervening sections, Cantor has retained the powerful narrative flow that made earlier editions so accessible.
In this succinct portrait of Alexander the Great, distinguished scholar and historian Norman Cantor draws on the major writings of Alexander's contemporaries as well as the most recent psychological and cultural studies to illuminate this most legendary of men-a great figure in the ancient world whose puzzling personality greatly fueled his military accomplishments. Cantor describes Alexander's ambiguous relationship with his father, Philip II of Macedon; his oedipal involvement with his mother, the Albanian princess Olympias; and his bisexuality. He traces Alexander's attempts to bridge the East and West, using Achilles, hero of the Trojan War, as his model. Finally, Cantor explores Alexander's view of himself in relation to the pagan gods of Greece and Egypt. More than a biography, Cantor's Alexander the Great is a psychological rendering of a man of his time.
"[An] incomparable mix of insight and cogency.... Military exploits (in Alexander's case, of course, military talents) are excitingly revivified, and honesty is the hallmark of Cantor's appreciation of Alexander's relationship with his longtime male lover, Hephaestion. A book that does the biographical art proud."-Booklist (starred review)
Alexander's behavior was conditioned along certain lines—heroism, courage, strength, superstition, bisexuality, intoxication, cruelty. He bestrode Europe and Asia like a supernatural figure.
In this succinct portrait of Alexander the Great, distinguished scholar and historian Norman Cantor draws on the major writings of Alexander's contemporaries as well as the most recent psychological and cultural studies to illuminate this most legendary of men—a great figure in the ancient world whose puzzling personality greatly fueled his military accomplishments. Cantor describes Alexander's ambiguous relationship with his father, Philip II of Macedon; his oedipal involvement with his mother, the Albanian princess Olympias; and his bisexuality. He traces Alexander's attempts to bridge the East and West, the Greek and Persian worlds, using Achilles, hero of the Trojan War, as his model. Finally, Cantor explores Alexander's view of himself in relation to the pagan gods of Greece and Egypt.
More than a biography, Cantor's Alexander the Great is a psychological rendering of a man of his time.
In this New York Times best-seller, Norman F. Cantor digs through the medical evidence and concludes that the Black Death of the 14th century was probably two diseases at once: bubonic plague and anthrax. He shows how these diseases affected the masses as well as individuals, and thus altered history. Concise, informative, and touched with dark humor, this book is a startlingly fresh view of a frightening epidemic.
