Historiae Mundi

The majority of the papers in this collection were first presented at a conference held at Manchester University in 2007. Liddel and Fear, of Manchester, selected work that examines the nature of histories of the world beginning with the Greeks Polybius, Diodorus Siculus and Strabo and their vision of the polis and its place in history, The book continues with articles on their Roman imitators followed by the Christian apologists, who used the form to validate their belief in history having been divinely planned throughout time. The possibility that there were conceptual influences from the Byzantines on Islamic world history is explored. The final two essays discuss modern concepts of world history in the contrasting views of Hegel and Spengler. As a whole, the essays indicate that, with few exceptions, world histories have been written to emphasize the importance of the culture of the author. A sub theme is the image of history itself, as cyclical or heading for either improvement or decay. Annotation c2010 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)