Thinking, Recording, and Writing History in the Ancient World

Kurt A. Raaflaub is David Herlihy University Professor, and Professor of Classics and History, emeritus at Brown University. His publications include The Discovery of Freedom (2004), Origins of Democracy in Ancient Greece (with Josiah Ober and Robert Wallace, 2007), The Roman Empire in Context: Historical and Comparative Perspectives (ed., with Johann P. Arnason, Wiley-Blackwell, 2011), Geography and Ethnography: Perceptions of the World in Pre-Modern Societies (with Richard J. A. Talbert, Wiley-Blackwell, 2013), and The Greek Polis and the Invention of Democracy: A Politico-Cultural Transformation and Its Interpretations (ed., with Johann P. Arnason and Peter Wager, Wiley-Blackwell, 2013).

• Series Editor’s Preface viiNotes on Contributors ixIntroduction 1Kurt A. Raaflaub1 On Being Historical 6David Carr2 The Task and Ritual of Historical Writing in Early China 19Stephen W. Durrant3 History and Primordium in Ancient Indian Historical Writing: Itihāsa and Purānòa in the Mahābhārata and Beyond 41James L. Fitzgerald4 Historical Consciousness and Historical Traditions in Early North India 61Romila Thapar5 Thinking, Recording, and Writing History in Ancient Japan: The Nihon shoki as a Text of Transition 79Christian Oberländer6 As the Dharmacakra Turns: Buddhist and Jain Macrohistorical Narratives of the Past, Present, and Future 97Jason Neelis7 History as Festival? A Reassessment of the Use of the Past and the Place of Historiography in Ancient Egyptian Thought 117Thomas Schneider8 The Presence of the Past in Early Mesopotamian Writings 144Piotr Michalowski9 “Two Old Tablets”: Thinking, Recording, and Writing History in Hittite Society 169Theo van den Hout10 Thinking and Writing about History in Teispid and Achaemenid Persia 187Robert Rollinger11 Historical Texts in the Hebrew Bible? 213Marc Zvi Brettler12 The Many Faces of the Past in Archaic and Classical Greece 234Jonas Grethlein13 How the Romans Remembered, Recorded, Thought About, and Used Their Past 256Andreas Mehl14 Patterns of Early Christian Thinking and Writing of History: Paul – Mark – Acts 276Eve-Marie Becker15 Byzantine historia 297Stratis Papaioannou16 The Past in the Early and Medieval Islamic Middle East (circa 750–circa 1250) 314Andrew Marsham17 Sources and Scales of Classic Maya History 340Nicholas P. Carter18 The Poetics and Politics of Aztec History 372Lori Boornazian Diel19 Corn and Her Story Traveled: Reading North American Graphic Texts in Relation to Oral Traditions 391Lisa BrooksIndex 417