Arnaldo Momigliano was one of the foremost classical historiographers of the twentieth century. This collection of twenty-one carefully selected essays is remarkable both in the depth of its scholarship and the breadth of its subjects. Moving with ease across the centuries, Momigliano supplements powerful readings of writers in the Greek, Jewish, and Roman traditions, such as Tacitus and Polybius, with writings that focus on later historians, such as Vico and Croce. Charmingly written and concise, these pieces range from review essays reprinted from the New York Review of Books to treatises on the nature of historical scholarship. Essays in Ancient and Modern Historiography is a brilliant reminder of Momigliano’s profound knowledge of classical civilization and his gift for deftly handling prose. With a new Foreword by Anthony Grafton, this volume is essential reading for any student of classics or historiography.

"Originally published 1977 by Basil Blackwell Oxford in Great Britain and by Wesleyan University Press in the United States."

Here, at last, are the long-awaited Sather Classical Lectures of the great historian Arnaldo Momigliano, In a masterly survey of the origins of ancient historiography, Momigliano captures those features of an ancient historian's work that not only gave it importance in its own day but also encouraged imitation and exploitation in later centuries. He reveals the extent to which Greek, Persian, and Jewish historians influenced the Western historiographic tradition, and then goes on to examine the first Roman historians and the emergence of national history. In the course of his exposition, he traces the development of antiquarian studies as distinctive branch of historical research from antiquity to the modern period, discusses the place of Tacitus in historical thought, and explores the way in which ecclesiastical historiography has developed a tradition of its own. All these lectures illustrate Momigliano's unrivaled ability to combine the study of classical texts and the history of classical scholarship. First delivered in 1962, the lectures were revised during the next fifteen years and then held for annotation that was never completed. They are now published from the author's manuscripts, collated and checked by Momigliano's literary executor, Anne Marie Meyer, of the Warburg Institute, with a foreword by Riccardo Di Donato, of the University of Pisa. The text is printed as the author left it. Sather Classical Lectures, 54

Momigliano acknowledged that his Judaism was the most fundamental inspiration for his scholarship, and the writings in this collection demonstrate how the ethical experience of the Hebraic tradition informed his other works.

Further, many of the most important names in late twentieth century biblical historiography appear as authors of various contributions: Hayes, Brettler, Van Seters, Miller, and de Vaux. In a work of more than 600 pages, Long finds room for thirty-two different writers. In addition to his concluding chapter, he also introduces each section and reprints an important essay of his own on history and literary technique.Every reader, including those already conversant with the subject, will gain much from reading this book. However, some will also recognize gaps or areas that they wished had been highlighted. Despite the word, 'Recent,' one wonders why no samples of the writings of Wellhausen, and especially of Alt, Noth, and Albright are included. Although most of the essays date from the 1990's, Hans Walter Wolff's contribution comes from a 1963 volume.

This book examines the conceptual and temporal frames through which modern Western historiography has linked itself to classical antiquity. In doing so, it articulates a genealogical problematic of what history is and a more strictly focused reappraisal of Greek and Roman historical thought. Ancient ideas of history have played a key role in modern debates about history writing, from Kant through Hegel to Nietzsche and Heidegger, and from Friedrich Creuzer through George Grote and Theodor Mommsen to Momigliano and Moses Finley; yet scholarship has paid little attention to the theoretical implications of the reception of these ideas. The essays in this collection cover a wide range of relevant topics and approaches and boast distinguished authors from across Europe in the fields of classics, ancient and modern history and the theory of historiography.

In the ancient Greek-speaking world, writing about the past meant balancing the reporting of facts with shaping and guiding the political interests and behaviours of the present. Ancient Historiography on War and Empire shows the ways in which the literary genre of writing history developed to guide empires through their wars. Taking key events from the Achaemenid Persian, Athenian, Macedonian and Roman ‘empires’, the 17 essays collected here analyse the way events and the accounts of those events interact. Subjects include: how Greek historians assign nearly divine honours to the Persian King; the role of the tomb cult of Cyrus the Founder in historical narratives of conquest and empire from Herodotus to the Alexander historians; warfare and financial innovation in the age of Philip II and his son, Alexander the Great; the murders of Philip II, his last and seventh wife Kleopatra, and her guardian, Attalos; Alexander the Great’s combat use of eagle symbolism and divination; Plutarch’s juxtaposition of character in the Alexander-Caesar pairing as a commentary on political legitimacy and military prowess, and Roman Imperial historians using historical examples of good and bad rule to make meaningful challenges to current Roman authority. In some cases, the balance shifts more towards the ‘literary’ and in others more towards the ‘historical’, but what all of the essays have in common is both a critical attention to the genre and context of history-writing in the ancient world and its focus on war and empire.

Lectures delivered as a series at Johns Hopkins University during 1982-83.

The main focus of this book is the ancient formation and development of the canons of Greek historiography. It takes a fresh look on the modern debate on canonical literature and deals with Greek historiographical traditions in the works of ancient rhetors and literary critics. Writings on historiography by Cicero, Quintilian, and Dionysius of Halicarnassus are chiefly taken into account to explore the canons of Greek historians in Hellenistic and Roman Imperial Ages. Essential in canon-formation was the concept of classicism which took shape in the Age of Augustus, but whose earlier developments can be traced back to Isocrates, a model rhetor according to Dionysius at the end of the 1st century BC. The analysis explores also late-antique authors of school treatises and progymnasmata, a field where historiography had a pedagogical function. Previous studies on canonical literature have rarely considered historiography. This book examines not only the works of ancient historians and their legacy, but also the relationship between historiography, literary criticism, and the rhetorical tradition.

History as a social science is arguably more self-reflective than associated disciplines in that family. Other social scientists seem to see little reason to look beyond the paradigm they are developing in the present times. Historians on the other hand, tend to depend on the cumulative process of the development of their craft and the fund of accumulated knowledge. Yet, while this is acknowledged in the practice of research, Historiography in itself as a subject of study has rarely found its place in the syllabi of Indian universities. Knowledge of Historiography is taken for granted when a scholar plunges into research. In an attempt to address this lacuna, the Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR) has planned a series of volumes on Historiography comprising articles by subject specialists commissioned by the ICHR. The first volume in the series, Approaches to History: Essays in Indian Historiography brings to the readers the first fruits of that endeavour. While the essays encompass areas of research presently at the frontiers of new research, scholars will also find the bibliographies accompanying the essays of significant appeal.