Library Catalog
Amazon cover image
Image from Amazon.com

Founding gods, inventing nations : conquest and culture myths from antiquity to Islam / William F. McCants.

By: Material type: TextTextPublication details: Princeton : Princeton University Press, ©2012.Description: 1 online resource ([ix], 179 pages)Content type:
Media type:
Carrier type:
ISBN:
  • 9781400840069
  • 1400840066
  • 1283280671
  • 9781283280679
Subject(s): Genre/Form: Additional physical formats: Print version:: Founding gods, inventing nations.DDC classification:
  • 939/.40072 22
LOC classification:
  • DS57 .M434 2012eb
Other classification:
  • online - EBSCO
Online resources:
Contents:
Gifts of the gods : the origins of civilization in ancient Near Eastern and Greek mythology -- The beneficent sky god : cultural history in the Qur'an -- Who was first? : protography and discovery catalogs -- Inventing nations : postconquest native histories of civilization's origins -- "The sciences of the ancients" : speculation on the origins of philosophy, medicine, and the exact sciences.
Summary: From the dawn of writing in Sumer to the sunset of the Islamic empire, Founding Gods, Inventing Nations traces four thousand years of speculation on the origins of civilization. Investigating a vast range of primary sources, some of which are translated here for the first time, and focusing on the dynamic influence of the Greek, Roman, and Arab conquests of the Near East, William McCants looks at the ways the conquerors and those they conquered reshaped their myths of civilization's origins in response to the social and political consequences of empire. The Greek and Roman conquests brought with them a learned culture that competed with that of native elites.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 149-166) and index.

Gifts of the gods : the origins of civilization in ancient Near Eastern and Greek mythology -- The beneficent sky god : cultural history in the Qur'an -- Who was first? : protography and discovery catalogs -- Inventing nations : postconquest native histories of civilization's origins -- "The sciences of the ancients" : speculation on the origins of philosophy, medicine, and the exact sciences.

From the dawn of writing in Sumer to the sunset of the Islamic empire, Founding Gods, Inventing Nations traces four thousand years of speculation on the origins of civilization. Investigating a vast range of primary sources, some of which are translated here for the first time, and focusing on the dynamic influence of the Greek, Roman, and Arab conquests of the Near East, William McCants looks at the ways the conquerors and those they conquered reshaped their myths of civilization's origins in response to the social and political consequences of empire. The Greek and Roman conquests brought with them a learned culture that competed with that of native elites.

Print version record.