Made in America: A Social History of American Culture and Character

Abstract This article takes a different look at the work of Burton Mack on apocalypticism and the post-historical Jesus crystallisation of the Christian ‘myth of innocence’ in terms of the social history of scholarship. After a critical assessment of previous receptions of Mack’s work from the era of the ‘Jesus wars’, there is a discussion of Mack’s place in broader cross-disciplinary tendencies in the study of apocalypticism with reference to the influence of liberal and Marxist approaches generally and those of Norman Cohn and Eric Hobsbawm specifically. Mack’s approach to apocalypticism should be seen as a thoroughgoing updating of Cold War liberal constructions of apocalypticism for an era of American ‘culture wars’, from Reagan to Trump. Part of this updating has also meant that, while much of his work against the apocalyptic Christian myth of innocence has been explicitly aimed at the de-legitimising the Right, it also continues the old Cold War intellectual battles by implicitly de-legitimising anything deemed excessively Marxist.

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Metal Mirrors from Altai Sites of the Xiongnu Time

Ancient Civilizations from Scythia to Siberia ◽

10.1163/15700577-12341354 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 25 (2) ◽

pp. 357-375

Author(s):

Alexey A. Tishkin ◽

Nikolay N. Seregin

Keyword(s):

Social History ◽

Metal Alloys ◽

Visual Examination ◽

The West ◽

The Social ◽

Archaeological Materials ◽

Long Time ◽

History Of ◽

Made In ◽

Comprehensive Study

Abstract Metal mirrors are important indicators when reconstructing the history of the ancient peoples of Altai on the basis of archaeological materials. Among the latter there are imported products, recorded in the mounds of the Xiongnu time (2nd century BC – 1st century AD). The article gives an overview of the results of a comprehensive study of the mirrors. Only one mirror was found intact, and the rest are represented by fragments. This collection of 19 archaeological items is divided into two groups, reflecting the direction of contacts of the Altai population in this period. The first demonstrates Chinese products that could have entered the region indirectly from the Xiongnu who dominated Inner Asia. Some of them were made in the previous period, but were used for a long time. The analyses of metal alloys from the Yaloman-II site supplements the conclusions made during the visual examination. The second group, through its origin, is associated with the cultures of the so-called Sarmatian circle, whose sites were located to the west of the Altai. A separate section of the article is devoted to a discussion of reconstruction of some aspects of the social history of the nomads and their world.

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Introduction

10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199696703.013.48 ◽

2016 ◽

Author(s):

Sabine Schmidtke

Keyword(s):

Social History ◽

Islamic Theology ◽

History Of ◽

The Impact ◽

Theological Thought ◽

Theological Thinking ◽

Made In

This book explores the history of Islamic theology, with particular emphasis on the doctrinal thought of all the various intellectual strands of Islam that were concerned with theological issues—including groups such as the Ismāʿīlīs and philosophers. It also discusses the inter-communal exchanges between Muslim, Christian, and Jewish thinkers over the course of the centuries to show how the theological thought of Jews and Christians intertwined with that of Muslims, and how Muslim theological thinking was influenced by Christian methodologies of speculative reasoning and doctrinal concepts. The rest of the book considers the impact of political and social history on Islamic theology. This introduction provides an overview of the foundations of Islamic theology and the advances that have been made in the scholarly study of Islamic theology.

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Roman Terracotta Lamps: the Organization of an Industry

The Journal of Roman Studies ◽

10.2307/299559 ◽

1980 ◽

Vol 70 ◽

pp. 126-145 ◽

Cited By ~ 18

Author(s):

W. V. Harris

Keyword(s):

Social History ◽

Economic History ◽

Roman World ◽

Greco Roman ◽

Material Sources ◽

History Of ◽

Important Progress ◽

Made In

It should be plain that important progress is to be made in the economic and social history of the Greco-Roman world through more systematic studies of the material remains. In the field of ancient manufacture and commerce, M. I. Finley has called for ‘a more sophisticated effort to approach quantification and pattern-construction’, and other historians too are well aware of what needs to be done. Doing it, however, can be difficult, for such projects, if approached with a scholarly desire for precision, bristle with complications, and the results can often be no more than tentative. Such is the case with this study of the terracotta lamp industry. For their part, the archaeologists who have studied groups of terracotta lamps, whether from particular sites or particular museums, have not altogether succeeded in fitting the material into the known framework of Roman life (this is not to suggest a primacy of written over material sources, simply that both are indispensable in economic history).

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