Research Catalog

Title

The first European : a history of Alexander in the age of empire / Pierre Briant ; translated by Nicholas Elliott.

Author

Briant, Pierre

Publication

Cambridge, Massachusetts : Harvard University Press, 2017.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

viii, 482 pages : illustrations, maps; 25 cm

Summary

In The First European: A History of Alexander in the Age of Empire, Pierre Briant examines the revival and rewriting of the history of Alexander the Great in 18th-century Europe. To Enlightenment thinkers Alexander exemplified the West and Europe, especially in his role as the conqueror of Asia. Classical texts, ancient history, and the new science of archaeology were all deployed in the service of European empire-building. Alexander was of interest to a variety of scholars from different parts of Europe - moralists, philosophers, economists, geographers, historians, and cartographers. In the course of the long 18th century, an entirely new image of the Macedonian conqueror emerged, as the precedent of European political and commercial expansion overseas.--

Uniform Title

Alexandre des lumières. English

Alternative Title

Alexandre des lumières.

Subject

• Alexander, the Great, 356 B.C.-323 B.C
• Macedonian Expansion (Greece : 359-323 B.C.)
• 359 B.C.-1799 A.D
• Hellenism > Influence
• Hellenism > Historiography
• History, Ancient > Historiography
• Hellenism > Historiography
• Hellenism > Influence
• Historiography
• Intellectual life
• Europe > Intellectual life > 18th century
• Greece > History > Historiography. > Macedonian Expansion, 359-323 B.C
• Europe
• Greece

Genre/Form

• History
• History.

Note

• "First published as Alexandre des lumières: fragments d'histoire européenne by Pierre Briant © Editions Gallimard, Paris, 2012."--Title page verso

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references and index.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

Introduction: Fragments of European history -- I. A critical history -- History, morals, and philosophy -- Alexander in Europe: erudition and history -- II. The conqueror-philosopher -- War, reason, and civilization -- A successful conquest -- Affirming and contesting the model -- III. Empires and nations -- Lessons of empire, from the Thames to the Indus -- Alexander in France from the Revolution to the Restoration -- German Alexanders -- IV. The sense of history -- After Alexander? -- Alexander, Europe, and the immobile Orient -- Conclusion.

ISBN

• 9780674659667
• 067465966X

LCCN

^^2016009269

OCLC

• 995527865
• SCSB-11542268

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library