- ホーム
- > 洋書
- > 英文書
- > History / World
Full Description
2022 PROSE Award Finalist in Classics
Although the era of the Enlightenment witnessed the rise of philosophical debates around benevolent social practice, the origins of European humane discourse date further back, to Classical Athens. The Ancient Greek Roots of Human Rights analyzes the parallel confluences of cultural factors facing ancient Greeks and eighteenth-century Europeans that facilitated the creation and transmission of humane values across history. Rachel Hall Sternberg argues that precursors to the concept of human rights exist in the ancient articulation of emotion, though the ancient Greeks, much like eighteenth-century European societies, often failed to live up to those values.
Merging the history of ideas with cultural history, Sternberg examines literary themes upholding empathy and human dignity from Thucydides's and Xenophon's histories to Voltaire's Candide, and from Greek tragic drama to the eighteenth-century novel. She describes shared impacts of the trauma of war, the appeal to reason, and the public acceptance of emotion that encouraged the birth and rebirth of humane values.
Contents
Timeline for Greece
Key to Abbreviations
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Exploration A. Enlightened Athens in the Age of Jefferson
Part I. Parallel Waves
Chapter 1. Reason
Chapter 2. Warfare
Chapter 3. Empathy and Tears
Chapter 4. Humane Discourse
Exploration B. Cyrus the Great
Part II. Ancient Greek Roots
Chapter 5. Elements
Chapter 6. Paths
Exploration C. Tensions
Conclusions
Notes
Works Cited
Subject Index
Index of Ancient Passages
