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• Winner of Named as Outstanding Academic Book by Choice.

Overview

Critics of Herodotus have generally shown an unease in the face of the religious passages of the Histories, a sense that he 'lets himself down' by delving into matters irrelevant to the proper purpose of history. They have tended consequently to latch on to isolated instances of scepticism in an attempt to vindicate Herodotus from imagined charges of obscurantism. Historians of Greek religion, on the other hand, by their concentration on ritual as the central feature of Greek religious experience, have often neglected the value of literary sources as evidence of religious belief; indeed the term belief has become something of a dirty word. In this book, the first full-length study of the subject in English, Dr Harrison not only places Herodotus' religious beliefs at the centre of his conception of history, but - by seeing instances of scepticism and of belief in relation to one another, and by the use of analogy from anthropological literature - also redresses the recent emphasis on the centrality of ritual.

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9780198152910

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Reviews

Harrison has done scholars of Herodotus a great service by bringing together so many passages and secondary scholarship. Mnemosyne A splendid, sinewy book which deserves a wide readership. Greece & Rome I have read nothing as interesting and illuminating on Herodotus as Tom Harrison's Divinity and History since Francois Hartog's Le miroir d'Herodote (1980). Greece & Rome The fact that Herodotus' religious beliefs are formative of the internal logic of his history is one of the most significant conclusions reached by Harrison in his estimable and badly needed book on the subject. The Classical Review The style is very clear considering the murkiness of the subject, and the tone is untendentious in spite of the minefields Harrison must clear. His method of dealing with his predecessors, of all camps, is a model that deserves to be emulated. The Classical Review

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