New Books in Ancient History

Herculaneum Uncovered is based on an in-depth filmed conversation between Howard Burton and Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, Director of Research and Honorary Professor of Roman Studies in the Faculty of Classics at the University of Cambridge. This wide-ranging conversation covers his fascinating archeological work done in Herculaneum and Pompeii, the politics of excavation, and life in the ancient Roman world.Howard Burton is the founder of the Ideas Roadshow, Ideas on Film and host of the Ideas Roadshow Podcast. He can be reached at howard@ideasroadshow.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Book Industry Month continues with a memory-lane voyage back to a beloved early RtB episode. This conversation with Martin Puchner about the very origins of writing struck us as perfect companion to Mark McGurl's wonderful insights (in RtB 67, published earlier this month) about the publishing industry's in 2021, or as Mark tells it, the era of "adult diaper baby love."Aside from being a fabulous conversation about Martin's wonderful history of book production through the ages (The Written World) this episode brings back happy memories of Elizabeth and John piling their guests into a cozy sound booth at Brandeis, the kind of place that's utterly taboo in Pandemic America.So travel with us back to 2019 for a close encounter with the epic of Gilgamesh. The three friends discuss the different stages of world writing--from the time of the scribes to the time of great teachers like Confucius, Socrates and Jesus Christ, who had a very complicated relationship to writing.In Recallable Books, Martin recommends the fan fiction website Wattpad; Elizabeth recommends "No Reservations: Narnia," in which Anthony Bourdain goes through the wardrobe. John feints at recommending Dennis Tenen's book on the writing within coding before recommending the Brautigan Library.Come for the discussion of writing, stay for the impressions of Gollum!Discussed in this episode: The Written World: The Power of Stories to Shape People, History and Civilization, Martin Puchner Gilgamesh: A New Rendering in English Verse, David Ferry Wattpad "No Reservations: Narnia," Edonohana Plain Text: The Poetics of Computation, David Tenen The Brautigan Library Episode transcript available here: Episode 6 Puchner 3.28.19Elizabeth Ferry is Professor of Anthropology at Brandeis University. Email: ferry@brandeis.edu. John Plotz is Barbara Mandel Professor of the Humanities at Brandeis University and co-founder of the Brandeis Educational Justice Initiative. Email: plotz@brandeis.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Though typically considered oral cultures, ancient Greece and Rome also boasted textual cultures, enabled by efforts to perfect, publish, and preserve both new and old writing. In Editorial Bodies: Perfection and Rejection in Ancient Rhetoric and Poetics (University of South Carolina Press, 2018) Michele Kennerly argues that such efforts were commonly articulated through the extended metaphor of the body. They were also supported by people on whom writers relied for various kinds of assistance and necessitated by lively debates about what sort of words should be put out and remain in public. Spanning ancient Athenian, Alexandrian, and Roman textual cultures, Kennerly shows that orators and poets attributed public value to their seemingly inward-turning compositional labors. After establishing certain key terms of writing and editing from classical Athens through late republican Rome, Kennerly focuses on works from specific orators and poets writing in Latin in the first century B.C.E. and the first century C.E.: Cicero, Horace, Ovid, Quintilian, Tacitus, and Pliny the Younger. The result is a rich and original history of rhetoric that reveals the emergence and endurance of vocabularies, habits, and preferences that sustained ancient textual cultures. This major contribution to rhetorical studies unsettles longstanding assumptions about rhetoric and poetics of this era by means of generative readings of both well-known and understudied texts.Lee M. Pierce (she/they) is an Assistant Professor at SUNY Geneseo specializing in rhetoric, race, and U.S. political culture. They also host the Media & Communications and Language channels for New Books Network and their own podcast titled RhetoricLee Speaking. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The lives of ancient Egyptians were truly colorful, and of them, the royals led the most vivid lives. The military pharaohs have left behind many records that give us a glimpse into their warfare style and accounts.In this new episode, Anthony John Spalinger, Emeritus Professor of Classics and Ancient History at the University of Auckland, paints a captivating picture of the pharaoh court, based on his work, “The Books behind the Masks – Sources of Warfare Leadership in Ancient Egypt. Ancient Warfare Series Volume 4.”The book takes previous study of the leadership characteristics of the military pharaohs one step forward by analyzing the war records and literary compositions composed to glorify their rule. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Come and Read: Interpretative Approaches to the Gospel of John (Fortress Academic, 2019) is a unique volume that both introduces numerous interpretive approaches to the Bible and includes examples in action with contributions from top scholars in the field. The book takes up three different passages throughout John’s Gospel—John 1:1–18, John 10, and John 20—and sets four different approaches to each passage side-by-side. The three selected texts move readers through the Gospel story and represent the three major sub-genres featured in the Gospel. John’s Prologue (1:1–18) is written in poetic style; John 10 represents a major discourse; and John 20 takes the form of dramatic narrative prose. Each section of the book includes readings on the focus passage from the same four interpretive perspectives: intertextual, sociocultural, rhetorical, and narrative. These approaches are broadly conceived to showcase varieties present even within approaches and how these ways of reading are connected to and benefit from one another. Overall, this book provides insight into current interpretive practices on the Gospel of John, and the rest of the Bible. It demonstrates how to use these methods effectively, illustrating not only the value of using a variety of approaches for interpretation, but also how methods impact the interpretations rendered.Jonathan Wright is a PhD student in New Testament at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He can be reached at jonrichwright@gmail.com, on Twitter @jonrichwright, or jonathanrichardwright.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Did the ideas of Deuteronomy influence the prophecies of Ezekiel? Jason Gile says Yes. His recent monograph argues that Deuteronomy's ideas influenced Ezekiel's response to the crisis surrounding the fall of Jerusalem and the Babylonian exile in significant ways, shaping how he saw Israel's past history of rebellion against Yahweh, present situation of divine judgment, and future hope of restoration.Tune in as we speak with Jason Gile about his recent book, Ezekiel and the World of Deuteronomy.Jason Gile serves as Dean of Program Development and Innovation, as well as Affiliate Professor of Old Testament at Northern Seminary in Illinois.Michael Morales is Professor of Biblical Studies at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, and the author of The Tabernacle Pre-Figured: Cosmic Mountain Ideology in Genesis and Exodus (Peeters, 2012), Who Shall Ascend the Mountain of the Lord?: A Biblical Theology of Leviticus (IVP Academic, 2015), and Exodus Old and New: A Biblical Theology of Redemption (IVP Academic, 2020). He can be reached at mmorales@gpts.edu Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We are surrounded by more readily available information than ever before. And a huge percentage of it is inaccurate. Some of the bad info is well-meaning but ignorant. Some of it is deliberately deceptive. All of it is pernicious.With the internet always at our fingertips, what’s a teacher of history to do? In Why Learn History (When It’s Already on Your Phone) (U Chicago Press, 2018), Sam Wineburg offers answers, beginning with this: We definitely can’t stick to the same old read-the-chapter-answer-the-questions-at-the-back snoozefest we’ve subjected students to for decades!If we want to educate citizens who can sift through the mass of information around them and separate fact from fake, we must explicitly work to give them the necessary critical thinking tools. Historical thinking has nothing to do with test prep–style ability to memorize facts. Instead, it’s an orientation to the world that we can cultivate, one that encourages reasoned skepticism, discourages haste, and counters our tendency to confirm our biases. Wineburg draws on surprising discoveries from an array of research and experiments to paint a picture of a dangerously mine-filled landscape, but one that, with care, attention, and awareness, we can all learn to navigate.It’s easy to look around at the public consequences of historical ignorance and despair. Wineburg is here to tell us it doesn’t have to be that way.The future of the past may rest on our screens. But its fate rests in our hands.Renee Garfinkel, Ph.D. is a psychologist, writer, Middle East television commentator and host of The New Books Network’s Van Leer Jerusalem Series on Ideas. Write her at reneeg@vanleer.org.il Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Rabbi Judah the Prince transformed the Mishnah into a text, and now Dov Zakheim, culling from a fascinating array of sources, has brought to life the story and historical times of Judah the Prince, offering us a portrait of one of the seminal figures of early Judaism.Join us as we talk with Dov Zakheim about his recent work, The Prince and The Emperors: The Life and Times of Rabbi Judah the Prince, published under the Maggid imprint of Koren Publishers.Dov Zakheim holds a BA from Columbia University and a DPhil from St. Antony’s College, University of Oxford. He served as Under Secretary of Defense for the United States (2001-2004), and received rabbinic ordination from the Gaon Rabbi Shmuel Walkin. Among his other works, he is the author of Nehemiah: Statesman and Sage(Maggid, 2016).Michael Morales is Professor of Biblical Studies at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, and the author of The Tabernacle Pre-Figured: Cosmic Mountain Ideology in Genesis and Exodus (Peeters, 2012), Who Shall Ascend the Mountain of the Lord?: A Biblical Theology of Leviticus (IVP Academic, 2015), and Exodus Old and New: A Biblical Theology of Redemption (IVP Academic, 2020). He can be reached at mmorales@gpts.edu Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Democratic Lessons: What the Greeks Can Teach Us is based on an in-depth filmed conversation between Howard Burton and Josiah Ober, Tsakopoulos-Kounalakis Professor in Honor of Constantine Mitsotakis Professor of Political Science and Classics at Stanford University. This extensive conversation includes topics such as the serendipitous factors that led him to study the classical world, the insights that examining rhetoric provide about ancient Athenian society, and how social media might help us fruitfully recreate aspects of the past. Prof. Ober discusses his insights that the ancient Athenians didn’t just happen to stumble upon the idea of democracy—they somehow managed to make it work in practice for the better part of 200 years, all the while facing many of the same divisive societal pressures that we are currently grappling with.Howard Burton is the founder of the Ideas Roadshow, Ideas on Film and host of the Ideas Roadshow Podcast. He can be reached at howard@ideasroadshow.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As the foundational text of the Oral Torah in Judaism, the Mishnah is generally analyzed to understand Jewish law and the workings of the halakhic system. But Yakov Nagen, in looking at over two hundred mishnayot, identifies fascinating literary devices employed by the Sages to convey a deeper meaning, even the Mishnah's 'inner spirit.'Join us as we talk with Yakov Nagen about his work, The Soul of the Mishna.Yakov Nagen is a senior rabbi at the Otniel Yeshiva in Israel, where he teaches Talmud, halakha, Jewish thought, and Kabbala. He also serves as director of Ohr Torah Stone’s Beit Midrash for Judaism and Humanity. He received his rabbinical ordination from RIETS at Yeshiva University and holds a PhD in Jewish Philosophy from Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is also the author of Be, Become, Bless: Jewish Spirituality between East and West(Maggid, 2019).Michael Morales is Professor of Biblical Studies at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, and the author of The Tabernacle Pre-Figured: Cosmic Mountain Ideology in Genesis and Exodus (Peeters, 2012), Who Shall Ascend the Mountain of the Lord?: A Biblical Theology of Leviticus (IVP Academic, 2015), and Exodus Old and New: A Biblical Theology of Redemption (IVP Academic, 2020). He can be reached at mmorales@gpts.edu Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices