The idea of a purely civic nationalism has attracted Western scholars, most of whom rightly disdain the myths that sustain ethnonationalist theories of political community. Civic nationalism is particularly attractive to many Americans, whose peculiar national heritage encourages the delusion that their mutual association is based solely on consciously chosen principles. But this idea misrepresents political reality as surely as the ethnonationalist myths it is designed to combat. And propagating a new political myth is an especially inappropriate way of defending the legacy of Enlightenment liberalism from the dangers posed by the growth of nationalist political passions.

The myth of the civic nation

https://cdr.lib.unc.edu/downloads/sb3978970

Reconstructing Israel: Restoration Eschatology in Early Judaism and Paul's Gentile Mission

Roman society of the early empire presents a confusing and ambiguous image that we cannot easily situate in unidirectional accounts of European economic history. Clearly, public monuments in marble or other precious stone, military security, the urban food supply, roads, aqueducts and gladiatorial games testify to public consumption on a grand scale. On the other hand, the signs of poverty, misery, and destitution are no less obvious. Many inhabitants of the Roman empire only eked out a meager living, their skeletons grim testimonies to malnutrition and disease. Growth occurred because the wealth of the elite may have been a sign of effective exploitation of the poor. Roman National Income was indeed larger than that of any preindustrial European state. One of the requirements for an economy is to provide enough subsistence for its population to survive. The economic and social achievements of pre-industrial societies can be measured if standard of living of the masses exceeds bare subsistence levels.

The early Roman Empire: consumption

Essence of diplomacy

1. Introduction 2. Athens and its legal system 3. Relevance in the popular courts 4. The homicide courts 5. Legal insecurity in Athens 6. Maritime cases 7. Conclusions.

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Law and justice in the courts of classical Athens

List of tables List of figures Preface Abbreviations 1. Introduction 2. Ritualised friendship 3. Encounter and initiation 4. The circulation of resources 5. Obligations: heroic and civic Conclusion Appendixes Bibliography Indexes.

Ritualised Friendship and the Greek City

1. Moral precepts and society 2. Athenian society and government 3. The moral image of the Athenian democracy 4. Representations and distortions 5. The structure of conflicts 6. Revenge and punishment 7. The coercive power of the state 8. Transformations of cruelty 9. Interactions with the divine 10. The growth of communal feeling.

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Morality and Behaviour in Democratic Athens: A Social History

Greek Epiphanies and the Sensed Presence

Godparenthood, "Guest-friendship", and the Spread of Christianity. G. Herman. ; ; Scholars have recently come to recognize that in pre-industrial societies godparenthood was an extremely adaptable and versatile bond of considerable importance. They cannot, however, agree upon how this institution came to be, the predominant view being that it was a straightforward creation of the early Christians. This article is an attempt to show that the societies of pre-Christian antiquity already had an institution, called xenia by the Greeks and hospitium by the Romans, which displayed a long list of features similar to those associated with godparenthood. The resemblance is so striking as to warrant the conclusion that the early Christians, rather than creating ex nihilo so complex a social bond as godparenthood, invested the pre-existing pagan institution with Christian imagery and symbolism and appropriated it to the service of the new religion. If this suggestion is correct, we may here have hit upon one secondary reason, hitherto overlooked, for Christianity's spectacular spread.

Gabriel Herman

Papers

Ritualised Friendship and the Greek City

Morality and Behaviour in Democratic Athens: A Social History

Greek Epiphanies and the Sensed Presence

Le parrainage, « l'hospitalité » et l'expansion du christianisme

Stability and crisis in the Athenian democracy