The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 3: Media

George RawlinsonProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.8
Word count
295K words
Chapters
30

Tags

English Originals World History Historical ReappraisalAncient PoliticsImperial Rise and FallRise and FallPower GameAcademic MonographAcademic StudyTextual ResearchAncient CivilizationMedian Empire

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 3: Media by RawlinsonAuthor: Rawlinson, George, 1812-1902,Language: English, Class: D: History: General and Eastern Hemisphere, Release Date: Jul 1, 2005

Editor's review

This volume focuses on ancient Media, an often overlooked yet pivotal link in Rawlinson's account of the seven great monarchies. Media's identity is complex across classical sources and Near Eastern inscriptions; from a nineteenth-century Orientalist perspective, the author traces Media's successive relations with Assyria, Babylon, and Persia, and discusses its royal line, customs, and imperial standing. For today's readers, the book's appeal lies in presenting an image of Media not yet fully rewritten by modern archaeology, helping us understand how later Greek writers imagined Eastern powers. It suits as supplementary reading in historiography and ancient Near Eastern studies, not as a definitive history of Media.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Not a good fit for

Reading tips

  1. Begin with the author's discussion of source materials to distinguish classical tradition from inscriptional evidence.
  2. Read alongside a timeline of Persia's rise to understand where the Median narrative fits.
  3. Build your own reference table of royal and ethnic names to reduce confusion.
  4. After each chapter, revisit the author's conclusions to identify which are speculative reconstructions.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30

FAQ

How much space does Media occupy in this book? This volume is the dedicated Median volume among the seven monarchies, covering its royal line, politics, and foreign relations. For the specific chapter structure, consult the original table of contents; skim it before reading to grasp the scope.
Is the book's account of Media reliable? It reflects nineteenth-century Orientalist understanding, and parts have been revised by later scholarship. Readers should treat it as material for the history of scholarship and compare it with modern Median studies rather than taking it as definitive.
Can I read it without a background in Persian history? Yes, but it helps to know the broad outline of Cyrus's rise and the founding of the Persian Empire. Media's relations with Persia and Assyria are important background, and lacking these clues makes comprehension harder.
What is the reading value of this book? Its value lies mainly in observing how early Orientalism integrated Greek sources and Near Eastern inscriptions to reconstruct Media. It is especially useful for readers studying historiography, the classical reception, and ancient Near Eastern narrative traditions.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

George Rawlinson Author · English · 1812–1902

George Rawlinson (1812–1902) was a British scholar, historian and Christian theologian who served as Camden Professor of Ancient History at Oxford from 1861 to 1889. He devoted himself to the study of the ancient East, and his best-known work, The Seven Great Monarchies of the Ancient Eastern World, treats the history of Chaldaea, Assyria, Babylon, Media, Persia, Parthia and Sassanian Persia in successive volumes. He also wrote histories of ancient Egypt and Phoenicia. With his brothers he translated Herodotus's Histories, a version that circulated widely. Rawlinson's writing is distinguished by careful use of sources and attention to political and institutional change, and it helped general readers in the English-speaking world understand the ancient Near East and Egypt.