
The Birth of Critical Thinking in Republican Rome
Claudia Moatti(Author)
Cambridge University Press
Published on 9. September 2015
Book
Hardback
410 pages
978-0-521-89578-1 (ISBN)
Description
In this classic work, now appearing in English for the first time, Claudia Moatti analyses the intellectual transformation that occurred at the end of the Roman Republic in response both to the political crisis and to the city's expansion across the Mediterranean. This was a period of great cultural dynamism and creativity when Roman intellectuals, most notably Cicero and Varro, began to explore all areas of life and knowledge and to apply critical thinking to the reassessment of tradition and the development of a systematic new understanding of the Roman past and present. This movement, linked to the development of writing, challenged old forms of authority and adhesion, belief and behaviour, without destroying tradition; and for this reason this rational trend can be described not as a cultural but as an epistemological revolution whose greatest achievement, Professor Moatti argues, was the development of the system of Roman law.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Cambridge
United Kingdom
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 235 mm
Width: 157 mm
Thickness: 27 mm
Weight
742 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-521-89578-1 (9780521895781)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

Claudia Moatti
The Birth of Critical Thinking in Republican Rome
E-Book
10/2015
Cambridge University Press
€100.99
Available for download

Claudia Moatti
Birth of Critical Thinking in Republican Rome
E-Book
09/2015
Cambridge University Press
€85.99
Available for download
Persons
Claudia Moatti is Professor of Ancient History at Universite de Paris VIII and of Classics at the University of Southern California, with a courtesy joint appointment in Law. Recent projects include an international program on 'The Control of Human Mobility in the Mediterranean from Antiquity to the Early Modern Period', which culminated in three edited volumes: Le controle de la mobilite des personnes en Mediterranee, de l'antiquite a l'epoque moderne (2004), Gens de passage en Mediterranee (2007), and Le monde de l'itinerance en Mediterranee (2009). She is currently studying the concept of res publica and the 'cosmopolitanisation' of the Roman Empire (a two-book project under the title Politics and Cosmopolitics).
Author
University of Southern California
Foreword
University of Cambridge
Translation
Content
Foreword Malcolm Schofield; Preface; Introduction to the English edition; Roman culture in movement; 1. Crises and questionings; 2. Opening up the world: the birth of curiosity; 3. From disarray to erudition; 4. The experience of thought; 5. A discourse on the method, or the spirit of forms; 6. The construction of Roman universality; 7. Conclusion: the territories of reason.