April 2009 Issue
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| FEATURES | ||||||||
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The enormously impressive third volume of the Roman Mosaics in Britain series has just hit the shelves. David Brown takes a look... | |||||||
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From Canterbury to East Anglia… We're the proud new distributor of a couple of excellent archaeology lists. Here are the latest releases... | |||||||
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Some more damaged books at really good prices. As usual they’re only available by email and on a first come first served basis, so be as quick as possible with those emails! | |||||||
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New Bargains on Prehistory, Egypt and the Ancient Near East A first look at our most recent bargain books. | |||||||
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New Bargains on the Classical World A first look at our most recent bargain books. | |||||||
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New Bargains on the Medieval World A first look at our most recent bargain books. | |||||||
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Of all the new books that have passed over the desks of the Oxbow staff this month, these, for whatever reason, are the ones that grabbed their attention.
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| NEWS AND HAPPENINGS | ||||||||
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New Releases | ||||||||
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Lucretius: De Rerum Natura V
For a work written more than two thousand years ago, in a society in many ways quite alien to our own, Lucretius' De Rerum Natura contains much of striking, even startling, contemporary relevance. This is true, above all, of the fifth book, which begins by putting a strong case against what it has recently become fashionable to call 'intelligent design', and ends with an account of human evolution and the development of society in which the limitations of technological progress form a strong and occasionally explicit subtext. Along the way, the poet touches on many themes which may strike a chord with the twenty-first century reader: the fragility of our ecosystem, the corruption of political life, the futility of consumerism and the desirability of limiting our acquisitive instincts are all highly topical issues for us, as for the poem's original audience. Book V also offers a fascinating introduction to the world-view of the upper-class Roman of the first century BC. This edition (which complements existing Aris and Phillips commentaries on books 3, 4 and 6) will help to make Lucretius' urgent and impassioned argument, and something of his remarkable poetic style, accessible to a wider audience, including those with little or no knowledge of Latin. Both the translation and commentary aim to explain the scientific argument of the book as clearly as possible; and to convey at least some impression of the poetic texture of Lucretius' Latin. | |||||||
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Inhabiting the Landscape: Place, Custom and Memory, 1500-1800
The discipline of landscape history has recently taken a new turn: away from the analysis of past land use and environments towards an understanding of landscape as a social construct. This book is a significant step along this exciting new road. Focusing on Norfolk in the post-medieval centuries, Nicola Whyte recaptures the essential character of ordinary people's experience of landscape. She shows how perceptions were deeply rooted in the comprehension of material antiquities, the annual round of work, public events and religious ritual, and the complex web of rights and jurisdictions mapped out in the fields. People valued and gave meaning to the landscape for a wide range of reasons, many of them unconnected with the economic potential of the land. Landscape features outside the confines of the church and the graveyard - pilgrimage routes, crosses, wells and springs - played an important part in the ideological shift of the Reformation. Parish boundaries, and in particular the annual ritual of 'beating the bounds' at Rogationtide, reveal much about the shifting pattern of local allegiances and competition over resources. Places of execution and the graves of suicides were 'mneumonic spectacles' defining both geographical and behavioural limits. The local history of enclosure and rights to commons is the story of nascent capitalism in rural England, a clash of values between modern productivity and ancient tradition that involved the reinterpretation and renegotiation of the past. Informed by the latest archaeological theory, this book shows how landscape development was a dynamic, experiential process, in which world-views changed as well as woods, hedges and fields. | |||||||
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Journal of Wetland Archaeology 8 (2008)
The Journal of Wetland Archaeology is the journal of the Wetland Archaeology Research Project (WARP).The journal covers all fields of wetland archaeology, from methodology to synthesis and theory and all periods and geographic regions are covered. | |||||||
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The Environment and Aggregate-Related Archaeology
This volume provides a synthetic review of the background and archaeology that has emerged through archaeological interventions associated with the quarrying of sand, gravel, and rock for aggregates. The book covers all periods from the Lower Palaeolithic to Medieval, and is organized on a regional basis. The review, which also contains as yet unpublished data, shows how the variety and preservation of archaeology can greatly expand our understanding of the relationships of humans to their changing environments. | |||||||
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The Social Archaeology of Funerary Remains
Human bones form the most direct link to understanding how people lived in the past, who they were and where they came from. The interpretative value of human skeletal remains (within their burial context) in terms of past social identity and organisation is awesome, but was, for many years, underexploited by archaeologists. The nineteen papers in this edited volume are an attempt to redress this by marrying the cultural aspects of burial with the anthropology of the deceased. | |||||||
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From Mine to Microscope: Advances in the Study of Ancient Technology
These twenty papers dedicated to Mike Tite focus upon the interpretation of ancient artefacts and technologies, particularly through the application of materials analysis. Instruments from the human eye to mass spectometry provide insights into a range of technologies ranging from classical alum extraction to Bronze Age wall painting, and cover materials as diverse as niello, flint, bronze, glass and ceramic. Ranging chronologically from the Neolithic through to the medieval period, and geographically from Britain to China, these case studies provide a rare overview which will be of value to students, teachers and researchers with an interest in early material culture. | |||||||
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Unamuno: Saint Manuel Bueno, Martyr
Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo was born in Bilbao on 29th September 1864. He wrote novels, essays, poems and plays, and in addition to these he played an important part in the political and intellectual life of Spain - an involvement that led to his exile to Fuerteventura in 1924. San Manuel Bueno, mátir (1930) was his last novel before his death in 1936. It tells the story of a heroic priest who has lost his faith in immortality, a theme that had interested Unamuno for many years. The setting of the novel is atmospheric and significant, the characters shadowy and symbolic. The book overall is a synthesis of Unamuno's philosophy. | |||||||
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Unamuno: Abel Sánchez
Miguel de Unamuno (1864-1936) is the towering intellectual giant of early twentieth-century Spain. He wrote novels, plays, poetry and many essays, but is best remembered for his fictional works and for his major philosophical meditation on the nature of existence. Abel Sánchez was published in 1917 and is perhaps Unamuno's most harrowing novel. Consisting mainly of dialogue it narrates the life of one man, Abel Sánchez, and his problematical relationship with his friend, Joaquín. Abel becomes more sucessful than Joaquín and is happier, and parallels are drawn between the Biblical story of Cain and Abel. At the end of the novel after a lifetime of torment Joaquín grabs Abel, who has a weak heart, by the throat and he dies; Joaquín himself dies shortly afterwards. In its concentration on issues of identity, personality and the insecurities of existence, it stands out amoung Unamuno's works as a profoundly unsettling account of man's existence and his relationship to other people. John Macklin's edition provides a new English translation alongside the Spanish text, together with a substantial introduction. | |||||||
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Lorca: Blood Wedding
Blood Wedding (Bodas de Sangre)was written in 1932, and was first performed in Madrid in March 1933. It proved to be the popular and critical success he'd been waiting for. When the play was staged in Buenos Aires he even found himself confronted with the prospect of wealth - a prospect that soon became a reality. This prosperous, happy spell was short-lived though, as the political situation in Spain altered under Franco, putting an end to this time, and ultimately, his life. Lorca was executed on August 18th 1936. Blood Wedding is based around the story of a young woman who, unable to wed her lover is made to marry a more suitable man. On the day of her wedding, however, La Novia (The Bride) runs away with her lover (Leonardo), who is married with children. A series of events ensues... Leonardo is the only character in the play to have a name, the others all being identified by their role: El Novio (The Groom), La Suegra (The Mother-in-Law). As with many of Lorca's plays, symbolism is key, with the moon and death personified. This is the first play in Lorca's trilogy of rural tragedies, with Yerma and The House of Bernarda Alba being second and third. | |||||||
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Lorca: The House of Bernarda Alba: A Drama of the Women in the Villages of Spain
La casa de Bernarda Alba (The House of Bernarda Alba) was one of the last plays to be written by Lorca, shortly before he was executed by the Franco regime at the age of 38, in 1936. It was not performed until 1945 several years after his death. Along with Blood Wedding and Yerma it forms Lorca's Rural Trilogy. The play is based around five daughters who live with their fearsome and tyrannical mother. The daughters have been kept sheltered from the opposite sex, but the arrival of a suitor after their father's death catapults the family into a downward spiral of sexual jealousy and death. The play explores themes of sexual oppression, passion, and conformity, and examines women's lives in Spain at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century. Bernarda's cruel tyranny over her daughters foreshadows the stifling nature of Franco's fascist regime, which was to arrive just a few weeks after Lorca finished writing his play. The introduction by Eric Southworth addresses the main issues of the play and the issues involved in translating it. | |||||||
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Conferences we will be attending Buildings and Farming: Past Present and Future Old Kingdom Art and Archaeology Group Conference Prehistoric Society Europa Conference |
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