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New Roman History Books (October 2011)

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Below are the newest releases for October...

 

IF ROME HADN'T FALLEN: How the Survival of Rome Might Have Changed World History

 

Invisible Romans [Hardcover]

 

Sacred Violence: African Christians and Sectarian Hatred in the Age of Augustine

 

Roman Conquest: Gaul

 

Rome and the Sword [Hardcover]

 

Why the West Rules--for Now: The Patterns of History, and What They Reveal About the Future [Paperback]

 

Ghost on the Throne: The Death of Alexander the Great and the War for Crown and Empire

 

The Iliad of Homer [Paperback]

 

The Mediterranean World in Late Antiquity: AD 395-700 (The Routledge History of the Ancient World) [Paperback]

 

Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead (Gift Edition with Scarab) [Hardcover]

 

Frontiers of the Roman Empire

 

Cicero: Verrine V (Bristol Latin Texts Series) (Bk. 5) [Paperback]

 

A History of Trust in Ancient Greece [Hardcover]

 

Constructing Communities in the Late Roman Countryside [Hardcover]

 

Consuls and Res Publica: Holding High Office in the Roman Republic [Hardcover]

 

The De Re Militari of Vegetius: The Reception, Transmission and Legacy of a Roman Text in the Middle Ages

 

Demography and the Graeco-Roman World: New Insights and Approaches [Hardcover]

 

The Maeander Valley: A Historical Geography from Antiquity to Byzantium (Greek Culture in the Roman World) [Hardcover]

 

Roman London and the Walbrook Stream Crossing: Excavations at 1 Poultry and Vicinity (MoLAS Monograph) [Hardcover]

 

Women and Visual Replication in Roman Imperial Art and Culture (Greek Culture in the Roman World)

 

Caesars' Wives: Sex, Power, and Politics in the Roman Empire [Paperback]

 

In Search of the Romans

 

Ancient Mediterranean Sacrifice [Hardcover]

 

The Viking World (Routledge Worlds) [Paperback]

 

Pagan Goddesses in the Early Germanic World: Eostre, Hreda and the Cult of Matrons (Studies in Early Medieval History) [Paperback]

 

Alexander the Great [Paperback]

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Well, that's another four or five books on my wishlist! Now where's that lottery ticket: you know, the winning one ... :(

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So I got the one on early Germanic goddesses. Here is my micro-review for Amazon:

 

Bede wrote of two goddesses of the Old English: Eostre and Hreda. There have been doubts these goddesses ever existed, some claiming they were Bede's fabrications.

 

Phillip Shaw claims that they did exist, but that we have to understand them in their proper light. He contends that rather than being widespread goddesses who ruled over a certain major aspect of reality (such as Greco-Roman goddesses, e.g., Aphrodite as goddess of love), these deities were confined to certain regions, or specific social roles within a defined group. (This makes them a lot more like Celtic goddesses than Greco-Roman ones).

 

As evidence, Shaw looks at linguistic analysis of Germanic languages, and onomastic studies. Inscriptions dedicated to the Romano-Germanic Matronae are studied to good effect. Everything is heavily referenced, and the book basically reads as a refutation to Bede's detractors.

 

Know what you are getting into before you buy it. While some authors like Kathleen Herbert can provide a scholarly overview of the subject still friendly to the general reader, Shaw's work is definitely targeted at a narrower audience. If you are extremely interested in either Hreda or Eostre for their own sake, or else extremely interested in linguistics, this book's erudition may fascinate you. If however you are simply a general enthusiast for Germanic religion and mythology (as I count myself), you may find Shaw's work overly academic and dry.

Yeah, I wish had my $20 back.

I did end up ordering the Viking tome. I have higher hopes for it.

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So I am reading "The Viking World" by Routledge (which isn't bad, by the way). It's a scholarly anthology of various topics written by scholars over the world.

 

Routledge has done this with other cultures, including Greece and Rome. I began wondering why I never heard of these books? Well, it seems they are over a decade old. Also, they are enormously expensive.

 

 

http://www.amazon.com/Roman-World-Routledge-Worlds/dp/041526314X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1319895607&sr=1-1

 

http://www.amazon.com/Greek-World-Routledge-Worlds/dp/0415170427/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1319895693&sr=1-1

 

The one on Greece looks like it is too beholden to specialized topics, such as women in Greece or archaic poetry. The one on Rome looks a little more generalized. Still, I wouldn't buy it for $93.03!

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