The Edges of the Earth in Ancient Thought: Geography, Exploration, and FictionFor the Greeks and Romans the earth's farthest perimeter was a realm radically different from what they perceived as central and human. The alien qualities of these "edges of the earth" became the basis of a literary tradition that endured throughout antiquity and into the Renaissance, despite the growing challenges of emerging scientific perspectives. Here James Romm surveys this tradition, revealing that the Greeks, and to a somewhat lesser extent the Romans, saw geography not as a branch of physical science but as an important literary genre. |
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The edges of the earth in ancient thought: geography, exploration, and fiction
User Review - Not Available - Book VerdictFor the ancient Greeks and Romans, geography was as much a form of narrative fiction as a scientific description of terrains or peoples. In an interesting, suggestive, and thoroughly documented study ... Read full review
Contents
The Boundaries of Earth | 9 |
Boundaries and the Boundless | 11 |
Ocean and Cosmic Disorder | 20 |
Roads around the World | 26 |
Herodotus and the Changing World Picture | 32 |
Aristotle and After | 41 |
Ethiopian and Hyperborean | 45 |
The Blameless Ethiopians | 49 |
The Late Romance Tradition | 109 |
Ultima Thule and Beyond | 121 |
Antipodal Ambitions | 124 |
The North Sea Coast | 140 |
The Headwaters of the Nile | 149 |
The Atlantic Horizon | 156 |
Geography and Fiction | 172 |
Ocean and Poetry | 176 |
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The Edges of the Earth in Ancient Thought: Geography, Exploration, and Fiction James S. Romm No preview available - 1992 |