Images of ancient Sparta have had a major impact on Western thought. From the Renaissance to the French Revolution she was invoked by radical thinkers as a model for the creation of a republican political and social order. Since the 19th century she has typically been viewed as the opposite of advanced liberal and industrial democracies: a forerunner of 20th-century totalitarian and militaristic regimes such as the Third Reich and the Soviet Union. Yet positive images of Sparta remain embedded in contemporary popular media and culture. This is the first book in over 40 years to examine this important subject. Eleven ancient historians and experts in the history of ideas discuss Sparta's changing role in Western thought from medieval Europe to the 21st century, with a special focus on Enlightenment France, Nazi Germany and the USA. The volume also covers new aspects of Sparta's reception not covered in previous work. -- Review from amazon.com website.
Record details
ISBN:9781905125470 (hbk.)
Physical Description:print xxvi, 462 p. : ill. 24 cm.
Publisher:Swansea : Classical Press of Wales ; Oakville, CT : Distributor in the United States of America The David Brown Book Co., 2012.
Content descriptions
Formatted Contents Note:
Introduction -- Part I: Medieval and early modern Europe -- 1. Lycurgus in late medieval political culture / Stephen Hodkinson / Ian Macgregor Morris -- 2. Sparta and Rome in early modern thought: a comparative approach / Ian Macgregor Morris -- Part II: Enlightenment to post-revolutionary France -- 3. Sparta and the French Enlightenment / Kostas Vlassopoulos -- 4. Spartans and savages: mirage and myth in eighteenth-century France / Haydn Mason -- 5. Treatments of Spartan land tenure in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century France: from François Fénelon to Fustel de Coulanges / Michael Winston -- Part III: Germany: From literary Hellenism to national socialism -- 6. Spartanic verses: Hölderlin and the role of Sparta in German literary hellenism, c. 1800 / Paul Christesen -- 7. Spartan tradition in Germany, 1870-1945 / Uta Degner -- 8. Spartanische Pimpfe: The importance of Sparta in the educational ideology of the Adolf Hitler Schools / Volker Losemann -- Part IV: Cold war polotics and contemporary popular culture -- 9. Sparta and the Soviet Union in U.S. Cold War foreign policy and intelligence analysis / Helen Roche -- 10. positive portrayal of Sparta in late-twentieth-century fiction / Stephen Hodkinson -- 11. 'This is Cake-Town!': 300 (2006) and the death of allegory / Lynn S. Fotheringham -- Index.
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