A study of the conditions of the production and distribution of literature from the fall of the Roman Empire to the close of the seventeenth century.

The unexpected murder in the little Cotswolds town of Colombury has everyone guessing. Before the answers are found more lives are threatened.

This volume presents a depiction of the Aramaic tribes of Mesopotamia; it explores the ancient and modern periods, the civil and religious influences, and the pagan and Christian heritage. For the past five centuries, the name Chaldean has been applied to Aramaic speaking people of Mesopotamia, and was the last term used to indicate Mesopotamian identity. The author was inspired by the presence of over a hundred thousand Chaldeans in the United States to produce this reference. He cites books and articles that deal with the history and culture, ancient and modern periods, the civil and religious influences, and the pagan and Christian heritage. The unannotated entries are arranged first by ancient and modern periods, then by form -- such as English books and non-English journal articles.

Brilliantly applying insights and methodologies from anthropology, literary theory, and the social sciences to the historical study of archaic lyric, Poetry and Its Public in Ancient Greece, winner of Italy's prestigious Viareggio Prize, develops a new Picture of the literary history of Greece. An essentially practical art, ancient Greek poetry was clocely linked to the realities of social and political life and to the actual behavior of individuals within a community. Its mythological content was didactic and pedagogical. But Greek poetry differs radically from modern forms in its mode of communication: it was designed not for reading but for performance, with musical accompaniment, before an audience. In analyzing the formal and social aspects of this performance context, Gentili illuminates such topics as oral composition and improvisation, oral transmission and memory, the connections betweek poetry and music, the changing socioeconomic situation of the artist, and the relations among poets, patrons, and the public.

James Westfall Thompson was an American historian specializing in the history of medieval and early modern Europe, particularly of the Holy Roman Empire and France. Thompson's work on ancient libraries gives an in depth look in to how the Libraries of the ancient East, ancient Greece and ancient Rome were established and managed. It also contains technical information such as the format of books, library architecture, cataloguing and classification, administration, book production, and bookselling.

This is a new release of the original 1923 edition.