BRILL
A.H.M. Jones and the later Roman Empire.
A dozen current scholars of the Later Roman Empire (400-700 AD) examine the life and work of the late Professor A.H.M. Jones, one of the first historians of the 20th century to study the fall of Rome from a social and economic point of view. The result, edited by Gwynn (history, Royal Holloway, University of London) is a series of historiographical essays, dealing more with the trends and debates among historians of the last century than Roman history. This book will interest graduate students in Roman history and those fascinated by the lives of British academics. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Achaemenid culture and local traditions in Anatolia, Southern Caucasus and Iran; new discoveries.
Eight articles revised from presentations to an October 2006 conference in Bormomi, Georgia, explore physical and visual evidence for relations between the Achaemenid Empire and local traditions in the territory it ruled. Their topics include the painted battle scene depicting Persian victory on the Munich Wood, the toreutics of Colchis in the fifth to fourth centuries BC, and Achaemenian seals found in Georgia. The volume also serves as a special issue of Ancient Civilizations from Scythia to Siberia vol. 13, nos. 1-2 (2007). It is not indexed. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
The adaptable peasant; agrarian society in western Sri Lanka under Dutch rule, 1740-1800.
In this structural analysis of changing social and economic relations in western Sri Lanka in the mid-18th century, Dewasiri (history, U. of Colombo, Sri Lanka) explores the impact of colonial Dutch attempts to diversify economic activities, systematize mechanisms for extracting revenue, and wrest power away for indigenous chiefs on the relationship between the peasant and the production process and among the peasants, the Dutch United East India Company, and the indigenous chiefs (who were the other main contenders for the expropriation of the peasant's surplus). By shifting attention away from the Manichean dichotomy of colonizer/colonized and towards peasant strategies of dealing with those who would expropriate their produce, Dewasiri reveals a more complex picture of social conflict. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Alasdair Macintyre's engagement with Marxism; selected writings 1953-1974.
While British philosopher MacIntyre famously broke with Marxism in After Virtue, his Marxist writings retain importance both for understanding his later thought combining elements of Marxism and Aristotelianism and for understanding his critique of such liberal theorists as Rawls and Nozick. This volume collects 46 of MacIntyre's Marxist essays of the 1950s and 1960s, selected by the editors if they were seen to be either directly related to Marxist theory and Marxist-inspired political movements or to constitute Marxist analyses of the world, although the short book reviews written for International Socialism that meet this criteria have been excluded. The editors also include an introductory essay situating MacIntyre's politics and writings within the context of the British New Left. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Ancilla calliopeae; ein Repertorium der neulateinischen Epik Frankreichs (1500-1700).
This is a valuable resource for scholars of Early Modern French history and literature, accessible to those who read German. Braun (classics, Würzburg) has accomplished the monumental task of researching dozens of French neo-Latin authors. These early modern writers of Latin were both clerics and laymen, and the topics they chose range from religious to historical to new renditions of Old French epics. Braun gives a brief biography of each author, the present location of manuscripts or editions of the work and any other critical work done on the author. He then gives a complete synopsis of each piece, quoting select passages and discussing sources and influences. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Approaches to Arabic linguistics; presented to Kees Versteegh on the occasion of his sixtieth birthday.
Ditters and Motzki (both Nijmegen U., The Netherlands) present a collection of essays honoring the work of Kees Versteegh (Nijmegen U.), one of the most eminent scholars in the field of Arabic linguistics. All of the 28 international academics and scholars contributing to the text have studied with Versteegh; several contributions come from former students who wrote their Ph.D. theses under his supervision. The 27 contributions are organized into sections on the history of Arabic grammar, Arabic linguistics, and Arabic dialectology. Three papers are in French, the remainder in English. The text also contains a bibliography of Versteegh's extensive body of work published between 1977 and 2007. A sampling of essay topics: pragmatics and contractual language in Early Arabic grammar and legal theory, featuring as a disambiguation tool in Arabic natural language processing, the use of morphological patterns in Arabic grammars of Turkic, and classical and colloquial Arabic archaisms. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Approaching Yehud; new approaches to the study of the Persian period.
The study of Yehud, the Persian colony that included Jerusalem in the 5th and 4th centuries BC, has led to new knowledge about the holy city at that time. The 12 essays of this volume present new research on Old Testament writings that include Ezra, the Psalms, Proverbs, Zechariah, Ezekiel, and Isaiah along with the analysis of architectural inscriptions and other sources. Aspects of society, religion, and politics are illuminated in the process. The contributors are academics in religious studies, the Hebrew Bible, and biblical studies in the U.S. and Canada. The volume includes a bibliography but is not indexed. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
The archaeology of early medieval Poland; discoveries — hypotheses — interpretations.
Between the sixth and the tenth centuries, often called The Dark Ages, Europe was closed for renovations after the Roman Empire ended but before the Medieval feudal system was quite up and running. Buko (archaeology and ethnology, Polish Academy of Sciences) synthesizes the archaeological evidence for the period in Poland, which saw the settlement of the Slavs and the beginning of what would become the border between eastern and western Europe. He includes 197 high quality color photographs. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Aristotle, On the life-bearing spirit (De spiritu); a discussion with Plato and his predecessors on pneuma as the instrumental body of the soul.
The Greek is Peri pneumatos, but the text is generally called by its Latin title De spiritu, when it is mentioned at all. Aristotle's authorship has been generally denied since the 15th century, and interest in it has waned. Dutch historians of philosophy Bos and Ferwerda, however, say it is at least Aristotelian — perhaps inspired by his writings on biology — and is anyway interesting in its own right. They present an English translation and extensive commentary. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Asian yearbook of international law; v.12, 2005-2006.
This yearbook, published under the auspices of the Foundation for the Development of International Law in Asia (DILA), contains four articles, in addition to a study on Vietnam's border disputes. Articles cover the following topics: maritime terrorism and security challenges in the Straits of Malacca and Singapore, with an emphasis on maritime conventions on counter-terrorism; UN Security Council reform and global security, and how changing the number of members on the council does not ensure global security; cooperation between the UN Security Council and the International Court of Justice; and the Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights Agreement to protect plant and animal life in developing countries. Other information in the yearbook consists of legal materials relating to the period, a chronicle of events relating to Asia relevant to international law from July 2004 to June 2005, and book reviews. Martinus-Nijhoff is an imprint of Brill. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
The authority of scripture in reformed theology; truth and trust.
A pastor in the Protestant Church in the Netherlands, Belt (systematic theology, VU U., Amsterdam) seeks the foundation for scriptural authority and the relationship of that authority to the faith of believers. He takes into account the views of Calvin and Benjamin B. Warfield, but is most interested in those of Herman Bavinck. The study is a revision of his October 2006 Ph.D. dissertation for the University of Leiden. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Baltic yearbook of international law; v.7, 2007.
The first ten papers in the 2007 edition of this annual series were presented at the April 2006 symposium on the history of international law scholarship in Central Eastern and Eastern Europe. In addition to discussing the Lithuanian, Czech, and Hungarian legal traditions, the authors chronicle the work of Judge Manfred Lachs, Paulus Wladimiri, Hersch Lauterpacht, and Jan Amos Comenius. The four following papers provide background on former Yugoslavian law, Ukrainian medieval law, Russian international legal history, and Baron Boris Nolde. Finally, three lengthy articles summarize legal decisions and agreements recently reached by Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Martinus Nijhoff is an imprint of Brill. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Beyond the yellow badge; anti-Judaism and antisemitism in medieval and early modern visual culture.
The yellow badge, of course, alludes to requirements for Jews in Nazi controlled territories, but decrees that Jews and Saracens be visually marked by their dress in Europe go back to 1215. Historians of art, architecture, stained glass, and other media survey some of the examples of such Jewish distinctiveness apparent in surviving works. Among them are taking little Jesus to school in two 13th-century Latin psalters from South Germany, Theophilus' magician in text and image, and Hebrew scripture in Rembrandt's art. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Biographical texts from Ramesside Egypt.
Here 45 late Bronze Age priests, artists, civil officials and military men give evidence of crucial developments in art, language and religious ideas on their tombs, on statues, and on temple walls. Frood (Egyptology, U. of Oxford) provides a strong contextual background for these people, who served the kings of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Dynasties, in the form of a general introduction and information on each biography, including relationships between the authors, their deities and their king and the ways in which their stories are inscribed. The result is a thorough introduction to the ways in which powerful people thought of themselves, their king and their gods in ancient Egyptian culture. The Society of Biblical Literature publishes the paperbound edition; Brill publishes the hardbound. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
A brush with animals; Japanese paintings, 1700-1950.
Produced to accompany an exhibition at the Kunsthal in Rotterdam, The Netherlands in 2007-2008, this attractive, oversized catalogue (10x12 inches) contains scholarly essays on Japanese stories and beliefs about animals, including the animals of the zodiac, in addition to describing 85 paintings selected from the exhibition. Illustrated with color plates of the best quality, the volume contains a glossary and a bibliography, but no index. Hotei is an imprint of BRILL. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Catalogue of the Western Asiatic seals in the British Museum; stamp seals III: Impressions of stamp seals on cuneiform tablets, clay bullae, and jar handles.
The purpose of this publication is to create an inventory of the impressions of Near Eastern stamp seals on cuneiform tablets and clay bullae, and on pottery jar handles from Palestine, now in the collections of the British Museum. The introductory text discusses the background of the collections, such as provenance and date, and citations and cataloguing. The centerpiece, of course, is the catalogue itself. The illustrations of the individual seals and pottery fragments are clear and well-presented. Accompanying descriptive and interpretive text also is clear, and thoroughly documented. Most of the seals are from the ninth century to the second century B.C., and are arranged in chronological order so that design changes can be clearly recognized. This volume is distributed by Brill. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Changing values, persisting cultures; case studies in value change.
Pettersson (sociology of religion, Uppsala U., Sweden) and Esmer (political science and international relations, Bahcesehir U., Istanbul, Turkey) present the twelfth volume in a series for students, scholars, academics, and researchers on the values, attitudes, beliefs and ideas in contemporary society. Based on data collected by the European Values Survey and World Values Survey (EVS/WVS), a social science project begun in 1981, the text features 14 chapters by 18 contributing authors — all members of the EVS/WVS research network — tracking value change and stability in their respective countries over the last decade (or two decades where data are available) of the 20th century. Organization is by geographic region, with chapters on Argentina, Austria, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Mexico, the Netherlands, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, and the U.S. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Chinese law; context and transformation.
Chen (law, La Trobe U., Australia) set out to update his 1999 book on Chinese law, but quickly discovered that both the country and its law had changed so much in the six or seven years that an entirely new account was necessary to do the subject justice. This account cites Chinese laws and materials up to August 2007. His topics include the experience of law in the People's Republic of China, sources of law and law making, criminal law, the development and general principles of civil law, law on business entities, intellectual property, and the implementation of law. He provides separate bibliographies for academic works in Chinese and in English. Martinus Nijhoff is an imprint of Brill. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
The China society yearbook (2006); China's social development, analysis and forecast.
As China continues its transition to a capitalist society and to a socialist society, Chinese sociologists have been exploring ways of creating harmony and sustainability. Featuring 15 contributions by 22 Chinese academics and researchers, the Yearbook examines central debates in the Chinese sociological community over an array of topics including social equality, education, urban and rural life, consumption structure, employment, trade unions, population growth, medical treatment, and public security. The text is edited by members of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the highest and most authoritative social science academic institution in the country. Publication of the text in English now makes information about the current social situation in China and the latest research by many of the country's top sociologists available to an international audience. This is the first volume of an annual that promises to become an essential reference. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
The choruses of Sophokles' Antigone and Philoktetes; a dance of words.
Volume 292 of the Mnemosyne Supplementa, this title argues a fundamental difference in the modes of expression of actor and chorus in Sophoklean tragedy, using Antigone and Philoktetes as examples. Kitzinger (classics, Vassar College) discusses the fuller context of the staging of the chorus, and studies how the mode of expression of the chorus is essentially different from that of the actors, showing a distinction between what can be said and thought through the medium of song versus speech and action. The book includes five sections: preface and introduction, separate sections on first Antigone followed by Philokletes with equal space spent on each, and an epilogue. The author includes sections from both plays in the original Greek as provided by the Oxford Classical Text, and does not provide translations; this well-researched title contains excellent scholarship and is intended for advanced students in the Classics. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Christ in Japanese culture theological themes in Shusaku Endo's literary works.
Mase-Hasegawa (religion and culture, Nanzan U.) provides a theological analysis of the work of Japanese writer Endo and his struggles to inculturate Christian faith in Japan. She argues that fundamental to his thought on inculturation is the concept of koshinto, the indigenous beliefs and spirituality of the Japanese people, and that any successful process of missiological inculturation demands a serious anthropological consideration of indigenous faith and spirituality. The study began as her doctoral dissertation in missiology at Lund University, Sweden. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
