Pierre Vidal-Naquet

Historien har inte skapats endast av det mänskliga förnuftets erövringar, utan också av dess irrvägar, av de återvändsgränder det slagit in på och alltjämt slår in på. - Pierre Vidal. Naquet Under närmare 2500 år har människor fångats av Platons berättelse om det sjunkna riket Atlantis. Än idag söker folk efter öns geografiska plats och låter sig förtrollas av dess idé. Men faktum kvarstår: som historisk oh geografisk realitet har Atlantis aldrig funnits. Trots det har myten utvecklats och fått eget liv. Intresset exploderade i och med upptäckten av Amerika, som av många identifierades med den sjunkna ön. Runtom i Europa har myten använts i nationalistiska syften. I Sverige tyckte sig till exempel universalgeniet Olof Rudbeck finna spår av ön utanför Uppsala. Med Atlantis hjälp försökte de lärda kartlägga världens ålder eller spåra de olika folkslagens ursprung. En mängd romaner och filmer berättar om försök att återupptäcka eller återskapa ön. Och i koncentrationslägret Theresienstadt komponerades en opera om kjesaren av Atlantis, som lånat drag av den nazistiske diktatorn.

This is the history of the development through the ages of Plato's "Atlantis" story - the imperialist island state that disappeared in a cataclysm, leaving Athens to survive it... Instead of simply focusing on the various attempts to 'find' Atlantis - all of which are futile for the very good reason that Plato made the island up - the author re-examines the very different uses made of the myth in different contexts and periods. He shows how Plato's myth was reinterpreted in the medieval period and after through conflation with the search for the lost tribes of Israel; how it became involved with the debate about whether Europe should look back to its origins in the Classical or Biblical worlds; how the myth was reinterpreted with a more geographical emphasis following Columbus' discovery of America; and how it was used in the "Enlightenment" to add colour to nationalist attempts to claim antiquity by finding unrecognised origins. Written in a clear and interesting way, Pierre Vidal-Naquet's original ideas rest on deep knowledge supported by primary references and illustrations.

Ce livre, dont Pierre Vidal-Naquet nous dit qu'il le portait en lui depuis un demi-siecle, commence aux environs de 355 av. J.-C., lorsque Platon redige le Timee et le Critias. Assurement Platon a puise dans la culture de son temps, d'Homere a Herodote et Thucydide, mais le mythe du continent perdu, inseparable d'une Athenes egalement imaginaire, est son oeuvre propre. Il n'y a pas a chercher l'Atlantide ni dans les profondeurs du temps ni dans celles de la mer. Reste que le mythe a connu d'incroyables developpements, dans l'Antiquite d'abord, grecque, romaine, et proto-byzantine, et a litteralement explose a la Renaissance, singulierement apres la decouverte de l'Amerique, rapidement identifiee par certains au continent imagine par Platon. D'autres, peu nombreux, resisterent, dont le plus remarquable est Michel de Montaigne. Les nationalistes s'emparerent du sujet, de l'Espagne a la Suede et de l'Italie a l'Allemagne, singulierement a l'epoque hitlerienne. Les savants chercherent a expliquer par le continent perdu tantot l'histoire de la planete, tantot la prehistoire minoenne de la civilisation grecque. Les personnages de Jules Verne la visiterent ou la reconstruisirent. Dans le " ghetto modele " de Theresienstadt, un poete et un musicien identifierent avec l'empereur de l'Atlantide le despote qui les incarcerait avant de les tuer. Il etait temps que cette longue histoire fut ecrite en francais. Pierre Vidal-Naquet (1930-2006): Historien, il a ete directeur d'etudes a l'Ecole des hautes etudes en sciences sociales, et directeur du Centre Louis-Gernet, fonde par Jean-Pierre Vernant. Il est l'auteur de nombreux ouvrages sur la Grece ancienne et sur l'histoire contemporaine.

Les Grecs ont invente la politique. On peut le dire sans crainte, dans la mesure ou la politique implique non seulement le debat - d'autres societes l'ont pratique - mais le suffrage, la loi commune ecrite, la resolution des antagonismes par des joutes verbales, et le vote des decisions auxquelles on peut donner une forme publique ecrite. Les dieux sont evoques en tete des plus anciens decrets, mais ce sont les hommes reunis en assemblee ou en conseil qui decident. Parmi les Grecs, les Atheniens ont invente la tragedie, ce fait social total comme aurait dit Marcel Mauss, a la fois esthetique, litteraire et religieux. Pierre Vidal-Naquet

The acclaimed French classicist Marcel Detienne's first book traces the odyssey of "truth," aletheia, from mytho-religious concept to philosophical thought in archaic Greece. Detienne begins by examining how truth in Greek literature first emerges as an enigma. He then looks at the movement from a religious to a secular thinking about truth in the speech of the sophists and orators. His study culminates with an original interpretation of Parmenides' poem on Being.

"No one can fail to admire the brilliance of the connections Vidal-Naquet suggests ... Audacity has been characteristic of Vidal-Naquet's career from the start; it marked his activities as a historian engage in the political struggle; it is visible at work in every page of this book."-Bernard Knox, from the Foreword The black hunter travels through the mountains and forests of Greek mythology, living on the frontier of the city-state, of adulthood, of class, of ethics, of sexuality. Taking its title from this figure, The Black Hunter approaches the Greek world from its margins and charts the elaborate system of oppositions that pervaded Greek culture and society: cultivated and wild, citizen and foreigner, real and imaginary, god and man. Organizing his discussions around four principle themes-space and time; youth and warriors; women, slaves, and artisans; and the city of vision and of reality-Pierre Vidal-Naquet focuses on the congruence of the textual and the actual, on the patterns that link literary, philosophical, and historical works with such social activities as war, slavery, education, and commemoration. The Black Hunter probes the interplay of world view, language, and social practice "to bring into dialogue that which does not naturally communicate according to the usual criteria of historical judgement." "A brilliant demonstration of structural analysis and its usefulness in illuminating well-known texts and providing fresh insights ... What strikes the reader of this book is its daring, innovative interpretations. This is not a book that merely collects new information or synthesizes old views. It bursts into the heart of important themes and floods them with bright light."-Modern Greek Studies Yearbook "One of the liveliest intellects in the field ... There is a wealth of learning in this book; specialists ...will wish to consult individual articles while the general reader will not only learn but enjoy its contents and tenor."-Classical World "Excellent ... Vidal-Naquet's book is a gem. It will stimulate further thoughts, discussions and writings on the Greek politeia and politikon. It should be read by all those who are involved in classical and comparative studies. It puts into circulation a structuralist reading which is provocative and simultaneously rings true."-V. Y. Mudimbe, Journal of Ritual Studies

These essays treat a range of issues from the ancient Jewish revolt against Roman rule and the much-mythologized martyrdom at Masada, the French Revolution, and Marxism's difficulties with "the Jewish question," to Nazi genocide and the deep problems of representing it.

Written by one of the leading ancient historians in the world today, this book shows how politics in the ancient world has been interpreted and re-interpreted through the ages.

-- Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, Columbia University

Jean-Pierre Vernant and Pierre Vidal-Naquet are leaders in a contemporary French classical scholarship that has produced a a stunning reconfiguration of Greek thought and literature. In this work, published here as a single volume, the authors present a disturbing and decidedly non-classical reading of Greek tragedy that insists on its radical discontinuity with our own outlook and with our social, aesthetic, and psychological categories. Originally published in French in two volumes, this new single-volume edition includes revised essays from volume one and is the first English translation of both volumes. Distributed for Zone Books.