Word: roman
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Along with Herodotus - hailed here as "a marker set down against the oblivion with which time threatens all human deeds" - and Thucydides, the earliest exponent of realpolitik, Burrow devotes the first third of his book to a long line of Greco-Roman historians. He goes on to discuss "the radical and pervasive" impact of the Bible on history - for example, in the writings of the 6th century French Bishop Gregory of Tours, whom he dubs "Trollope with blood." Equally intriguing is Burrow's discussion of the secular historian Geoffrey of Monmouth, a fabricator who claimed that his 12th century account...
...trailblazing masterpiece, "matching the scale of events it recounted in a way no printed book could do." As Burrow suggests, this is just part of a broader shift in the way the past has come to be packaged. When Burrow was a boy, he learned Latin and translated the Roman historians Livy and Tacitus. Today, children still learn about, say, the Battle of Thermopylae, where 300 Spartans under King Leonidas stood up to several thousand invading Persian troops, refusing to retreat and meeting certain death. But now their source is Frank Miller's graphic novel 300, the movie it inspired...
...incense and intrigue of another papal conclave is upon us again. Well, sort of. Pope Benedict XVI is alive and well and attending to his mission as absolute ruler of the Roman Catholic Church for the foreseeable future. But just down the block from St. Peter's Square, church elders - though not all so old, and without a Cardinal among them - have begun gathering for a closed-door meeting to elect the man dubbed the "black pope." That's the moniker historically assigned to the leader of the Jesuit order: for the color of the simple priestly vestments he keeps...
...Most Jesuits steer clear of offending the Vatican hierarchy, focusing on frontline missionary work amongst the poor and oppressed. Noted in particular for their vast network of schools and universities, the Jesuits are widely considered the day-to-day educational and intellectual motor for Roman Catholicism. Pecklers, who teaches liturgy at the Gregorian University in Rome, has lately been working on an education project in the hinterlands of Mongolia. "Whereas a Benedictine is centered around his monastery, the Jesuit's life is the road. The way we've achieved our credibility is getting our hands dirty, getting involved in issues...
...This history of the [poet] laureate is from Roman times,” says Redmond. “But it was always an upper class thing...