Civil War Stories

Civil War Stories
by Ambrose Bierce

Newspaperman, short-story writer, poet and satirist, Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914) stands among the most striking and unusual literary figures that America has ever produced. During the Civil War, he enlisted in the Indiana infantry. Most of the sixteen stories in the above collection are based on Bierce’s recollections of the war.

In The Devil's Dictionary Ambrose Bierce defined "war" as "a by-product of the arts of peace." A Civil War veteran, Bierce had absolutely no illusions about "courage," "honor," and "glory" on the battlefield. These stories form one of the great antiwar statements in American literature. Included here are the classic An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, Chickamauga, The Mocking Bird, The Coup de Grâce, Parker Anderson, Philosopher, and other stories celebrated for their intensity, startling insight, and mastery of form.

Ancient Greece

Ancient Greece: A Political, Social, and Cultural History
by Sarah Pomeroy, Stanley Burstein, Walter Donlan, Jennifer Roberts

Written by four leading authorities on the classical world, here is a new history of ancient Greece that dynamically presents a generation of new scholarship on the birthplace of Western civilization.

Ranging from Greece's first beginnings in the Bronze Age through the tumultuous Hellenistic era dominated by Alexander the Great, this volume offers a truly wide-ranging portrait, blending the traditional political and military approach with a more modern accent on social and cultural history. Everything is included here--the sweeping philosophical systems of Plato and Aristotle, the daily lives of women in Athens, dramatic sea battles in the Aegean, the epic poetry of Homer, the rise of the city-state. The book offers illuminating descriptions of Sparta and Athens, recounts the Persian and Peloponnesian wars, evaluates the contributions of notable figures such as Solon, Cleisthenes, Pericles, and Philip II of Macedon, and discusses the remarkable rise of Alexander the Great. Throughout the book, the editors trace the slow evolution of Greek culture, revealing how the early Greeks borrowed from their neighbors, but eventually developed a distinctive culture of their own, marked by astonishing creativity, versatility, and resilience.

Featuring 17 original maps, over 80 photographs, and numerous "document boxes" which highlight a variety of primary source material, this book provides an account of the Greek world that is thoughtful and sophisticated while remaining accessible to the nonscholar. A dynamic collaboration between four renowned scholars Sarah Pomeroy, Stanley M. Burstein, Walter Donlan, and Jennifer Tolbert Roberts it is the definitive portrait of the fountainhead of Western philosophy, literature, science, and art.

Problems in Ancient History, Vol. 1

Problems in Ancient History, Vol. 1: The Ancient Near East and Greece
edited by Donald Kagan

Selected ancient sources in translation and modern commentaries provide a survey of major problems in ancient history from Sumeria to the late Roman Empire and offer insight into historical methods and techniques.

The Greek Dark Age or Ages (ca. 1200–800 BCE) are terms which have regularly been used to refer to the period of Greek history from the presumed Dorian invasion and end of the Mycenaean Palatial civilization around 1200 BCE, to the first signs of the Greek city-states in the 9th century BCE. These terms are gradually going out of use, since the former lack of archaeological evidence in a period that was mute in its lack of inscriptions (thus "dark") has been shown to be an accident of discovery rather than a fact of history.

The archaeological evidence shows a widespread collapse of Bronze Age civilization in the eastern Mediterranean world at the outset of the period, as the great palaces and cities of the Mycenaeans were destroyed or abandoned.

Around this time, the Hittite civilization suffered serious disruption and cities from Troy to Gaza were destroyed. Following the collapse, fewer and smaller settlements suggest famine and depopulation. In Greece the Linear B writing of the Greek language used by Mycenaean bureaucrats ceases.

The decoration on Greek pottery after c. 1100 BCE lacks the figurative decoration of Mycenaean ware and is restricted to simpler, generally geometric styles. It was previously thought that all contact was lost between mainland Hellenes and foreign powers during this period, yielding little cultural progress or growth; however, artifacts from excavations at Lefkandi on the Lelantine Plain in Euboea show that significant cultural and trade links with the east, particularly the Levant coast, developed from c. 900 BCE onwards, and evidence has emerged of the new presence of Hellenes in sub-Mycenaean Cyprus and on the Syrian coast at Al Mina.