scholarly journals Empire, nationalism and christianity

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 130-149
Author(s):  
Phillip Blond
Keyword(s):  
Human History ◽  
Material Force ◽  
Greek City ◽  
Francis Fukuyama ◽  
Imperial Expansion ◽  
History Of ◽  
Preliminary Orientation ◽  
Eric Voegelin ◽  
City States ◽  
History Of Empire

This paper studies in parallel the history of empire and the development of universals. It uses as its preliminary orientation the work of Eric Voegelin who argued that universals develop in history alongside and through universalising empires. We find this basic contention highly credible as it is empires that force us to develop cognitive approaches that encompass both colonised and coloniser in any subsequent social structure. So conceived, the paper then argues that empires are synonymous with human history as such and that even those entities (such a Greek city states) which are eulogised for escaping this logic are on examination no less imperial than the empires they oppose. The paper then argues that the development of universals is not a byproduct of empire but rather that it drives imperial expansion in the first place. It seeks to argue that ideation is the casual factor in human history, social structures and behaviour. It argues contra thinkers like Francis Fukuyama, there is no biological foundation for the qualitative distinctions of civilisation, rather the paper contends that the origin of civilisation lies in human conceptuality not human biology, locality or indeed any other material force impinging on life. So configured, the paper then concludes that the primary political question lies in bringing together the question of the good with empire – a process most advanced in human history by Christianity.

Topography of Athens

Classics ◽  
2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey M. Hurwit ◽  
Ioannis Mitsios
Keyword(s):  
Coastal Plain ◽  
Aegean Sea ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Greek City ◽  
Urban Core ◽  
Ancient City ◽  
History Of ◽  
City States ◽  
City State ◽  
The City

The ancient city-state (or polis) of Athens was contiguous with the region known as Attica, a large, triangular peninsula extending southeastward from the Greek mainland into the Aegean Sea. In the western angle of Attica, on a coastal plain surrounded by four mountains (Hymettos, Pentelikon, Parnes, and Aigaleos), lay the city itself. Although the modern city has thickly spread up the slopes of the mountains as well as to the sea, the study of Athenian topography concentrates on the monuments, buildings, and spaces of the ancient urban core, an area roughly 3 square kilometers surrounding the Acropolis and defended in the Classical period by a wall some 6.5 kilometers in length. Athens is the ancient Greek city that we know best, and it is unquestionably the Greek city whose art, architecture, literature, philosophy, and political history have had the greatest impact on the Western tradition and imagination. As a result, “Athenian” is sometimes considered synonymous with “Greek.” It is not. In many respects, Athens was exceptional among Greek city-states, not typical: it was a very different place from, say, Thebes or Sparta. Still, the study of Athens, its monuments, and its culture needs no defense, and the charge of “Athenocentrism” is a hollow indictment when one stands before the Parthenon or holds a copy of Sophocles’ Antigone. This article will refer to the following periods in the history of Athens and Greece (the dates are conventional): late Bronze, or Mycenaean, Age (1550–1100 bce); Dark Age (1100–760 bce); Archaic (760–480 bce); Classical (480–323 bce); Hellenistic (323 –31 bce); and Roman (31 BCE–c. 475 ce).

scholarly journals The Great Battle of the Books between the Cultural Evolutionists and the Cultural Relativists: From the Beginning of Infinity to the End of History

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 6-30
Author(s):  
Kevin Fernlund ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Development ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Human History ◽  
Ethical Challenges ◽  
End Of History ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Francis Fukuyama ◽  
History Of ◽  
The End Of History

The idea that societies or cultures can evolve and, therefore, can be compared and graded has been central to modern history, in general, and to big history, in particular, which seeks to unite natural and human history; biology and culture. However, while extremely useful, this notion is not without significant moral and ethical challenges, which has been noted by scholars. This article is a short intellectual history of the idea of cultural evolution and its critics, the cultural relativists, from the Age of the Enlightenment, what David Deutsch called the “beginning of infinity,” to the neo-Hegelianism of Francis Fukuyama. The emphasis here is on Europe and the Americas and the argument is that the universal evolutionism of the Enlightenment ultimately prevailed over historical partic-ularism, as global disparities in social development, which were once profound, narrowed or even disappeared altogether.

A History of the Greek City States 700-338 B. C.

1977 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 630
Author(s):  
Thomas W. Africa ◽  
Raphael Sealey
Keyword(s):  
Greek City ◽  
History Of ◽  
City States

A Brief History of Rhetoric in Narrative Advertising

2019 ◽  
pp. 151-163
Author(s):  
Nilay Tan Çakır
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Narrative Form ◽  
History Of Rhetoric ◽  
Greek City ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Social Sphere ◽  
Rhetorical Figures ◽  
History Of ◽  
City States ◽  
Advertising Content

The term “rhetoric” is derived from the Greek word rhetor. In its original meaning, the term is known to be used for describing an “orator,” a term which refers to a person or a politician giving a speech in a public space or defending himself/herself in the court in Antique Age because in Greek city-states, social sphere was the place where spoken language and face-to-face communication prevailed in antique age conditions. Today, on the other hand, the population to be addressed has enlarged, and new platforms which can influence a number of people at the same time have emerged. Advertising is one of those platforms in which rhetoric is most frequently used because “persuading” the consumer is one of the most significant elements in advertising content. Besides, advertising is a persuasive narrative form and has strong influence in terms of rhetorical figures. In this chapter, a brief history of rhetoric is presented, and then a relationship between rhetoric and advertising narrative is established.

The Formation of Greek City-States: Status, Class, and Land Tenure Systems

2013 ◽  
Vol 68 (04) ◽  
pp. 615-657
Author(s):  
Julien Zurbach
Keyword(s):  
Land Tenure ◽  
Essential Feature ◽  
Formative Period ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
Greek City ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Creation ◽  
City States ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The City

Recent scholarship has often remarked on the opposition between two conceptions of Archaic Greek societies, relating either to a legal and static definition of status or to a notion of status as personal and fluid, linked to diversified strategies for obtaining social distinction. This article seeks to move beyond this opposition by examining the history of status groups in the Archaic period. After analyzing the key stages within the complex historiography devoted to this subject, it goes on to provide a history of status groups during the formative period of the city-states. The creation of new status groups was an essential feature of the city-states’ history and was primarily linked to indebtedness and war. Although statuses were collective and often imposed from the outside, they nevertheless display a historical development that is central to the formation of city-states. In the seventh century BCE, new groups were created in response to the aristocracy’s need for a workforce. The resulting conflict led to an evolution of the systems regulating access to land and food. This reorganization of entitlement, which was how communities responded to the social and economic crisis they faced, was in turn based on the creation of new status groups. Social conflict led to the definition of a new system of status groups.

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