A collection of animal fables told by the Greek slave Aesop.

Honoring the path of a slave, this dramatic picture-book biography and concise anthology of Aesop's most child-friendly fables tells how a child born into slavery in ancient Greece found a way to speak out against injustice by using the skill and wit of his storytelling--storytelling that has survived for 2,500 years. Stunningly illustrated by two-time Caldecott Honor winner Pamela Zagarenski. The Tortoise and the Hare. The Boy Who Cried Wolf. The Fox and the Crow. Each of Aesop's stories has a lesson to tell, but Aesop's true-life story is perhaps the most inspiring tale of them all. Gracefully revealing the genesis of his tales, this true story of Aesop shows how fables not only liberated him from captivity but spread wisdom over a millennium. This is the only children's book biography about him. Includes thirteen illustrated fables: The Lion and the Mouse, The Goose and the Golden Egg, The Fox and the Crow, Town Mouse and Country Mouse, The Ant and the Grasshopper, The Dog and the Wolf, The Lion and the Statue, The Tortoise and the Hare, The Boy Who Cried Wolf, The North Wind and the Sun, The Fox and the Grapes, The Dog and the Wolf, The Lion and the Boar.

Despite originating more than two-and-a-half thousand years ago, Aesop's Fables are still passed on from parent to child, and are embedded in our collective consciousness. The morals we have learned from these tales continue to inform our judgements, but have the stories also informed how we regard their animal protagonists? If so, is there any truth behind the stereotypes? Are wolves deceptive villains? Are crows insightful geniuses? And could a tortoise really beat a hare in a race? In Aesop's Animals, zoologist Jo Wimpenny turns a critical eye to the fables to discover whether there is any scientific truth to Aesop's portrayal of the animal kingdom. She brings the tales into the twenty-first century, introducing the latest findings on some of the most fascinating branches of ethological research – the study of why animals do the things they do. In each chapter she interrogates a classic fable and a different topic – future planning, tool use, self-recognition, cooperation and deception – concluding with a verdict on the veracity of each fable's portrayal from a scientific perspective. By sifting fact from fiction in one of the most beloved texts of our culture, Aesop's Animals explores and challenges our preconceived notions about animals, the way they behave, and the roles we both play in our shared world.

"The present collection of essays is offered as a contribution towards the realization of a sounder interest in and a more intimate appreciation of certain problems upon which psychology has an authoritative charge to make to the public jury ... to show that the sound and profitable interest in mental life is in the usual and normal, and that the resolute pursuit of this interest necessarily results in bringing the apparently irregular phenomena of the mental world within the field of illumination of the more familiar and the law-abiding. They further aim to illustrate that misconceptions in psychology, as in other realms, are as often the result of bad logic as of defective observation, and that both are apt to be called into being by inherent mental prepossessions. Some of the essays are more especially occupied with an analysis of the defective logic which lends plausibility to and induces credence in certain beliefs; others bring forward contributions to an understanding of phenomena about which misconception is likely to arise; still others are presented as psychological investigations which, it is believed, command a somewhat general interest"--Preface. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2005 APA, all rights reserved).

In this imaginative and illuminating work, Annabel Patterson traces the origins and meanings of the Aesopian fable, as well as its function in Renaissance culture and subsequently. She shows how the fable worked as a medium of political analysis and communication, especially from or on behalf of the politically powerless. Patterson begins with an analysis of the legendary Life of Aesop, its cultural history and philosophical implications, a topic that involves such widely separated figures as La Fontaine, Hegel, and Vygotsky. The myth’s origin is recovered here in the saving myth of Aesop the Ethiopian, black, ugly, who began as a slave but become both free and influential, a source of political wisdom. She then traces the early modern history of the fable from Caxton, Lydgate, and Henryson through the eighteenth century, focusing on such figures as Spenser, Sidney, Lyly, Shakespeare, and Milton, as well as the lesser-known John Ogilby, Sir Roger L’Estrange, and Samuel Croxall. Patterson discusses the famous fable of The Belly and the Members, which, because it articulated in symbolic terms some of the most intransigent problems in political philosophy and practice, was still going strong as a symbolic text in the mid-nineteenth century, where it was focused on industrial relations by Karl Marx and by George Eliot against electoral reform.

This volume offers the reader information on scientific discoveries from early man to World War II, offering a view of world events.

Spanning from Sumer to the present day few literary genres show greater continuity throughout their history than the fable. Historical evidence reaching as far back as Antiquity, supports the study of more than 500 works considered to be fables. This translation of the original Spanish, standard work on the fable, traces the history of the Graeco-Latin fable, investigates its origins, reconstructs lost collections from the Hellenistic Age, and establishes relationships between the fablist of the Imperial Age and the study of Medieval, Greek and Latin fables. Supplements at the end of each chapter have been added, giving information on a new bibliography and some new data, together with references to subsequent studies.

Praised by The New York Times; O, The Oprah Magazine; Bitch Magazine; Slate; Publishers Weekly; and more, this is “a bracing corrective to a national mythology” (New York Times) around the civil rights movement. The civil rights movement has become national legend, lauded by presidents from Reagan to Obama to Trump, as proof of the power of American democracy. This fable, featuring dreamy heroes and accidental heroines, has shuttered the movement firmly in the past, whitewashed the forces that stood in its way, and diminished its scope. And it is used perniciously in our own times to chastise present-day movements and obscure contemporary injustice. In A More Beautiful and Terrible History award-winning historian Jeanne Theoharis dissects this national myth-making, teasing apart the accepted stories to show them in a strikingly different light. We see Rosa Parks not simply as a bus lady but a lifelong criminal justice activist and radical; Martin Luther King, Jr. as not only challenging Southern sheriffs but Northern liberals, too; and Coretta Scott King not only as a “helpmate” but a lifelong economic justice and peace activist who pushed her husband’s activism in these directions. Moving from “the histories we get” to “the histories we need,” Theoharis challenges nine key aspects of the fable to reveal the diversity of people, especially women and young people, who led the movement; the work and disruption it took; the role of the media and “polite racism” in maintaining injustice; and the immense barriers and repression activists faced. Theoharis makes us reckon with the fact that far from being acceptable, passive or unified, the civil rights movement was unpopular, disruptive, and courageously persevering. Activists embraced an expansive vision of justice—which a majority of Americans opposed and which the federal government feared. By showing us the complex reality of the movement, the power of its organizing, and the beauty and scope of the vision, Theoharis proves that there was nothing natural or inevitable about the progress that occurred. A More Beautiful and Terrible History will change our historical frame, revealing the richness of our civil rights legacy, the uncomfortable mirror it holds to the nation, and the crucial work that remains to be done. Winner of the 2018 Brooklyn Public Library Literary Prize in Nonfiction

This collection of humorous folktales from around the world share one common feature: the character of a fool.

Get the real facts you weren’t taught in school and learn how these myths have survived for so long. Discover the stories behind history’s greatest lies and how—and why—the world’s biggest whoppers have survived textbooks and lesson plans for years. For instance, did you know the conquistador Hernán Cortés wasn’t as bloodthirsty as they say? Neither were the Goths, who were actually the most progressive of the Germanic tribes. Or, that a petty criminal with a resemblance to John Dillinger was probably assassinated instead of the notorious bank robber? In History’s Greatest Lies, Weir sets the record straight through a fascinating examination of historical lies and myths and the true stories behind them. Each chapter pinpoints a misconception held as common truth in history. For example: Emperor Nero did not fiddle as Rome burned Paul Revere had plenty of help in his midnight ride In terms of prisons, the Bastille wasn’t all that bad Weir explains why each lie persevered in our minds through ulterior motives, responsibility shirking, or exaggerations. You’ll also discover the common threads that make up these falsehoods: the scapegoats, the spin needed to cast undeserving in a better light, and the frightful oversimplification of facts. Praise for History’s Greatest Lies “Weir takes no prisoners—and tells no lies—in his continuously surprising and always fascinating new book. Great falsehoods have shaped history even more than great truths; the enduring fascination of this highly original volume is discovering how much of what we accept for fact is just plain wrong.” —Joe Cummins, author of The War Chronicles: From Chariots to Flintlocks and History’s Greatest Untold Stories