New Books in Ancient History

Oct 28 2024 552 ep. 54 mins 220

New Books in Ancient History Podcast artwork

Interview with scholars of the Ancient World about their new books

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Toni Alimi, "Slaves of God: Augustine and Other Romans on Religion and Politics" (Princeton UP, 2024)

Oct 28 2024 66 mins

Augustine believed that slavery is permissible, but to understand why, we must situate him in his late antique Roman intellectual context. Slaves of God: Augustine and Other Romans on Religion and Politics (Princeton UP, 2024) provides a major reassessment of this monumental figure in the Western religious and political tradition, tracing the remarkably close connections between Au

Vicente Dobroruka, "Second Temple Pseudepigraphy: A Cross-cultural Comparison of Apocalyptic Texts and Related Jewish Literature" (de Gruyter, 2014)

Oct 25 2024 81 mins

At this point of the scholarly debate on the nature of Second Temple pseudepigraphy, one may ask why another look at the problem is needed. Second Temple Pseudepigraphy: A Cross-cultural Comparison of Apocalyptic Texts and Related Jewish Literature (de Gruyter, 2014) is not the definitive answer to that problem but it proposes different paths - or better still, a two-fold path: on

Dominick Hernández, "The Prosperity of the Wicked: A Theological Challenge in the Book of Job and in Ancient Near Eastern Literature" (Gorgias Press, 2022)

Oct 24 2024 23 mins

Does Job convincingly argue against a fixed system of just retribution by proclaiming the prosperity of the wicked, an argument that runs contrary to traditional biblical and ancient Near Eastern wisdom? Addressing this question, Dominick Hernández gives careful consideration to the rhetoric, imagery, and literary devices used to treat the issue of the fate of the wicked in Job's

Bruce Gordon, "The Bible: A Global History" (Basic Books, 2024)

Oct 19 2024 76 mins

A “wonderful…highly comprehensive” (John Barton, author of A History of the Bible) global history of the world’s best-known and most influential book For Christians, the Bible is a book inspired by God. Its eternal words are transmitted across the world by fallible human hands. Following Jesus’s departing instruction to go out into the world, the Bible has been a book in

William T. Taylor, "Hoof Beats: How Horses Shaped Human History" (U California Press, 2024)

Oct 17 2024 50 mins

Which society was the first to domesticate the horse? It’s a difficult question. The archaeological record is spotty, with only very recent advancements in genetics and carbon dating allowing scientists to really test centuries-old legends about where horses came from. For example, historians argued that the Botai civilization in Kazakhstan provided some of the earliest evidence

Simcha Gross, "Babylonian Jews and Sasanian Imperialism in Late Antiquity" (Cambridge UP, 2024)

Oct 15 2024 74 mins

From the image offered by the Babylonian Talmud, Jewish elites were deeply embedded within the Sasanian Empire (224-651 CE). The Talmud is replete with stories and discussions that feature Sasanian kings, Zoroastrian magi, fire temples, imperial administrators, Sasanian laws, Persian customs, and more quotidian details of Jewish life. Yet, in the scholarly literature on the Babylon

Helena Taylor, "Women Writing Antiquity: Gender and Learning in Early Modern France" (Oxford UP, 2024)

Oct 12 2024 61 mins

Women Writing Antiquity: Gender and Learning in Early Modern France (Oxford UP, 2024) recounts women authors' struggle to define the female intellectual through their engagement with the classical world in early modern France. Bringing together the fields of classical reception and women writers, Helena Taylor looks at various female novelists, translators, poets, playwrights, and

The Ideology of Democratic Athens

Oct 08 2024 76 mins

We are Clavis Aurea: a dynamic team constantly looking for ways to make the academic publishing industry grow and to promote groundbreaking academic publications to scholars, students and enthusiasts globally. Based in the renowned publishing city of Leiden, we eat, sleep and breathe publishing! Matteo Barbato’s The Ideology of Democratic Athens: Institutions, Orators and the Myt

Darlene L. Brooks Hedstrom, "Desert Ascetics of Egypt" (ARC Humanities Press, 2020)

Sep 30 2024 61 mins

Egypt is revered as the home of the famous Desert Ascetics, who first embraced a monastic life and established homosocial communities on the borders of their urban centres in the Nile Valley. Regarded as angels and warriors, the wisdom of the Desert Ascetics formed part of the oral and literary tradition of wonder-working saints whose commitment to asceticism was legendary and insp

James A. Anderson, "The Dong World and Imperial China's Southwest Silk Road: Trade, Security, and State Formation" (U Washington Press, 2024)

Sep 30 2024 31 mins

From the eighth to thirteenth centuries along China’s rugged southern periphery, trade in tribute articles and an interregional horse market thrived. These ties dramatically affected imperial China’s relations with the emerging kingdoms in its borderlands. Local chiefs before the tenth century had considered the control of such contacts an important aspect of their political au