Peter Brown, perhaps the greatest living authority on Mediterranean civilization in late antiquity, traces the growing power of Christian bishops as they wrested influence from philosophers, who had traditionally advised the rulers of Graeco-Roman society. In the new “Christian empire,” the ancient bonds of citizen to citizen and of each city to its benefactors were replaced b...
Peter Brown, perhaps the greatest living authority on Mediterranean civilization in late antiquity, traces the growing power of Christian bishops as they wrested influence from philosophers, who had traditionally advised the rulers of Graeco-Roman society. In the new “Christian empire,” the ancient bonds of citizen to citizen and of each city to its benefactors were replaced by a common Christianity and common loyalty to a distant, Christian autocrat. This transformation of the Roman empire from an ancient to a medieval society, he argues, is among the most far-reaching consequences of the rise of Christianity.
“A new book by Peter Brown is clearly an event. . . . Peter Brown is a writer of highly emotive as well as extremely clever prose. . . . The Curti lectures complete the sequence of studies of the Christianisation of late antiquity on which Peter Brown has been engaged since the publication of Augustine of Hippo (1967). One by one, these studies have illuminated the world of late antiquity (the term he has made his own) by reference to what has preceded it. ”—Averil Cameron, London Times Higher Education Supplement
“There are few areas of humane scholarship so daunting as the study of late antiquity, that period when Christianity gradually conquered the mind and heart of the foundering Roman empire. Peter Brown is a widely recognized master of this pivotal moment of history. . . . What characterizes Brown’s work is his graceful, even ingratiating style, one that makes the most esoteric-seeming matter engaging.”—Washington Post
“Peter Brown combines a witty and ironic prose style with the gifts of a first-class historian of late antiquity possessing an exhaustive knowledge of the sources. His latest book will certainly win him new admirers and delight old friends. The central question of Power and Persuasion in Late Antiquity is a perennial issue in human affairs, but Mr. Brown focuses particularly on the Roman Empire in the 200 years after Constantine the Great, who died in A.D. 337. How did the empire control its citizens? And what difference to the style of that control did church leaders make as the empire became converted to Christianity? . . . His telling is enriched by delectable details and acute, original observations.”—Henry Chadwick, New York Times Book Review
“The ability to provide fresh approaches to issues that date back to Gibbon’s mordant phrases is surely one of the qualities that has made Peter Brown, now at Princeton, the preeminent contemporary historian of late antiquity.”—Carl L. Bankston III, Commonwealth
Power and Persuasion in Late Antiquity的创作者
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Peter Brown is the Rollins Professor of History at Princeton University. He has also taught at Oxford University, the University of London, and the University of California. Among his many books are The Body and Society, The Cult of the Saints, Society and the Holy in Late Antiquity, and Augustine of Hippo.
目录
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Preface vii
1. Devotio: Autocracy and Elites 3
2. Paideia and Power 35
3. Poverty and Power 71
4. Towards a Christian Empire 118
Index 159
Preface vii
1. Devotio: Autocracy and Elites 3
2. Paideia and Power 35
3. Poverty and Power 71
4. Towards a Christian Empire 118
Index 159
· · · · · · (收起)
2 有用 Gaiseric 2024-04-21 14:44:46 吉林
又看了一遍。极其流畅地解释了基督主教在4世纪取代旧的地方文化精英和哲学家的身份、承担起“persuasion”职责的过程,对教化这种政治文化而言是由圈子有限的政治想象走向了“普世之道”,对主教而言是同时承担起了地方庇护人和哲学家的双重身份,对东部帝国而言则是从“城邦的联合体”走向了“基督教帝国”。这一过程来自于帝国晚期中央与地方互动形式及地方社会结构的变化,布朗在这一基础上展开了文化认同角度的论述... 又看了一遍。极其流畅地解释了基督主教在4世纪取代旧的地方文化精英和哲学家的身份、承担起“persuasion”职责的过程,对教化这种政治文化而言是由圈子有限的政治想象走向了“普世之道”,对主教而言是同时承担起了地方庇护人和哲学家的双重身份,对东部帝国而言则是从“城邦的联合体”走向了“基督教帝国”。这一过程来自于帝国晚期中央与地方互动形式及地方社会结构的变化,布朗在这一基础上展开了文化认同角度的论述。不过对拉丁西方不同的情况的介绍就几乎没有了,只能到《穿过针眼》中去寻找 (展开)
0 有用 郭谙若 2024-01-11 21:52:49 上海
又收集了不少有趣的掌(duan)故(zi)
0 有用 紫罗欧 2025-08-04 13:49:17 江苏
·二刷(其实看的还是中文译本),绝对的大师之作,同时亦是一本流畅易读的小书,期待早日再版 ·这次读的比较仔细,大致梳理了下行文思路,参见短评 ·主教的“救险队”(parabalani),又有被叫做“抬棺队”(lecticarii)和“掘墓队”(fossores)的,笑死