Mostrando resultados por Editor "Audio Connoisseur" en Todas las categorías

This famous work by Lucretius is a masterpiece of didactic poetry, and it still stands today as the finest exposition of Epicurean philosophy ever written. The poem was produced in the middle of first century B.C., a period that was to witness a flowering of Latin literature unequaled for beauty and intellectual power in subsequent ages. The Latin title, De Rerum Natura, translates literally to On the Nature of Things and is meant to impress the reader with the breadth and depth of Epicurean philosophy.

The Twelve Caesars was written based on the information of eyewitnesses and public records. It conveys a very accurate picture of court life in Rome and contains some of the raciest and most salacious material to be found in all of ancient literature. The writing is clear, simple and easy to understand, and the numerous anecdotes of juicy scandal, bitter court intrigue, and murderous brigandage easily hold their own against the most spirited content of today's tabloids.

The Argonautica, also known as Jason and the Golden Fleece or Jason and the Argonauts, is the only surviving epic poem from Hellenistic Greece. It is a masterpiece whose story was well known to the audiences of the time. Virgil and other later poets were greatly influenced by it. Its author, Apollonius, was a well-known third century BC scholar living in Alexandria during the great age of Ptolomaic scholarship, and his bold attempt at writing a Homeric epic about Jason and his quest for the Golden Fleece faced a daunting audience of knowledgeable contemporaries.

19th century Europe produced some of the greatest soldiers, statesmen, scientists, artists, and thinkers of any period in recorded history. And by the middle of that century nationalism had emerged triumphant from Ireland to Greece, and many new nations, including Germany and Italy, had appeared. But nationalism was accompanied by a chauvinistic impulse toward militarism.

The world of ancient Egypt springs magnificently to life in this astonishing historical novel of love, war, political intrigue, and religious revolution. Told from the first-person point of view, it is the story of Sinuhe, physician to the royal court of Pharaoh Amenhotep III and his successors in the middle of the tumultuous 14th century B.C. From his exalted position, Sinuhe was able to observe and participate in some of the most intimate and important decisions that affected the powerful Egyptian kingdom of the 18th Dynasty during a very troubled period of its history.

No nation has ever achieved the literary diversity of America. From nativist humor to immigrant triumph, Americans have recorded their visions and hopes better than anyone

Historians universally agree that Thucydides was the greatest historian who has ever lived, and that his story of the Peloponnesian conflict is a marvel of forensic science and fine literature. That such a triumph of intellectual accomplishment was created at the end of the fifth century B.C. in Greece is, perhaps, not so surprising, given the number of original geniuses we find in that period. But that such an historical work would also be simultaneously acknowledged as a work of great literature and a penetrating ethical evaluation of humanity is one of the miracles of ancient history.

The greatest short story writers strive to achieve a single, dramatic effect, a feature which the early masters of this genre perfected. Although the short story came from Europe, it was reborn in America and reached a pinnacle of superb form on these shores by the turn of the 20th century. In so many of our best writers, we hear echoes of a pioneer ethos that sustains the heart of a great literature. Here are 12 of America's best.

The Arthurian legend of Camelot has been told many times, but never better than by Alfred Tennyson. Employing some of the most stirring and beautiful blank verse ever written, Tennyson crafted his version of the Knights of the Round Table over the course of nearly fifty years, completing it in 1885. Despite the length of time, Tennyson managed to maintain a high level of style and continuity throughout.

Dio Cassius was a Roman statesman and historian of Greek origin. He published 80 volumes of history on ancient Rome, beginning with the arrival of Aeneas in Italy. The volumes documented the subsequent founding of Rome (753 BC), the formation of the republic (509 BC), and the creation of the empire (31 BC). The history continues until AD 229.

Gregory of Tours was a Gallo-Roman aristocrat and Catholic prelate born in 538. He died 56 years later, in 591, a period in which the brutal Merovingian rulers of the Frankish nation consolidated their power over most of Gaul. Gregory experienced the transition from the dying world of Roman antiquity to the new culture of early medieval Europe. He lived on the border between the Frankish culture of the Merovingians to the north and the Gallo-Roman culture of the south of Gaul. He struggled through personal relations with four Frankish kings.

The Dark Ages is the story of the birth of Western civilization. It was a harrowing crucible of war, destruction, and faith. For over 100 years, Charles Oman's famous history has remained one of the finest sources for the study of this period. Covering a period of 500 years and an area stretching from Northern Germany to Egypt, this is the definitive history that will alter your conceptions of a period of history that gave birth to the civilization we live in today.

Unlike the other arts, American literature has been a powerful, influential, and leading aspect of American culture. By turns sedate and mercurial and possessing a moral mind set of various social values, the American short story reveals in its pages the psyche of a growing, sprawling nation whose sense of destiny has always been larger than life. Here are seven masterpieces that will make you smile, make you frown, and leave you pondering the mystery that surrounds the soul of a great nation.

A history of the Crusades. Out of the chaos of Muslim tribal warfare and regional animosity arose a military genius such as Islam had never known: Saladin. Uniting the sultanates of Cairo and Damascus, Saladin created a single powerful state. Luring the crusaders into an ill-considered confrontation, he destroyed their army at the Battle of Hattin in 1187, leaving the few remaining crusaders clinging perilously to a series of towns and forts along the Levantine coast. Into this desperate situation stepped the most formidable warrior of the age, Richard the Lion-Hearted.

Russian literature exudes an atmosphere of mysticism, which is said to be a natural result of the simplicity of her people. Often, instead of being "about" anything, Russian stories sometimes seem to be the "thing" in itself. Be this as it may, it is an undeniable fact that with hardly any portent of future greatness to come, Russian literature suddenly sprang fully developed into existence in the 19th century.

The six works of ancient Chinese philosophy in this volume are the product of four great philosophers: Confucius, Lao Tzu, Sun Tzu, and Mencius. The men who produced these profound writings all lived between the 8th and 3rd centuries B.C.

Mention the name of Friedrich Nietzsche almost anywhere and you are apt to receive a strong emotional response, either negatively or positively. Few persons will say they have no opinion. And for good reason. Employing some of the most withering attacks and scathing criticism conceivable against, among other things, Christianity, education, government, Wagner, and the judicial systems of his day, Nietzsche was a one-man wrecking ball of European society in the latter half of the 19th century.

This classic war memoir, first published in 1920, is based on the author's extensive diaries describing hard combat experienced on the Western Front during World War I. It has been greatly admired by people as diverse as Bertolt Brecht and Andre Gide, and from every part of the political spectrum. Hypnotic, thrilling, and magnificent, The Storm of Steel is perhaps the most fascinating description of modern warfare ever written.

Polybius wrote his Histories "to find out by what means and by what political system the entire world was brought under the domination of Rome." Within the short space of about 50 years Rome went from being a provincial leader of an Italian confederacy to become the Mistress of the Mediterranean. Polybius was one of the first historians to attempt to present history as a sequence of causes and effects, based upon a careful examination of tradition and a keen scrutiny of the facts.

A Short History of the Middle Ages describes the tumultuous era that bridged antiquity and the modern world. Renowned 19th-century French historian and statesman Victor Duruy originally crafted a sweeping, multi-volume chronicle of this pivotal period, from the fall of the Roman Empire to the dawn of the Renaissance.