Mycenaean Greece, Mediterranean Commerce, and the Formation of Identity.

Traduz.italiana di Mario Rossi. Milano, Rizzoli Ed. 1962, cm.24x31, pp.429, centinaia di ill.e tavv.bn.e col.nt. legatura ed.in tutta tela, sopracop.fig.a col.

New York, Scribners 1977, cm.19x24, pp.370, num.ill.bn.nt, legatura ed.sopracop.fig.a col.

University of California Press 1994, cm.15x23, pp.254, brossura con copertina figurata a colori. We tend to suppose that the ancient Greeks had primitive ideas of the self, of responsibility, freedom, and shame, and that now humanity has advanced from these to a more refined moral consciousness. Bernard Williams's original and radical book questions this picture of Western history. While we are in many ways different from the Greeks, Williams claims that the differences are not to be traced to a shift in these basic conceptions of ethical life. We are more like the ancients than we are prepared to acknowledge, and only when this is understood can we properly grasp our most important differences from them, such as our rejection of slavery. The author is a philosopher, but much of his book is directed to writers such as Homer and the tragedians, whom he discusses as poets and not just as materials for philosophy. At the center of his study is the question of how we can understand Greek tragedy at all, when its world is so far from ours.

Paris, Firmin Didot Frères 1853-1854, 2 volumi. cm.16x24, volume I:pp.356, con 4 tavole a doppia pagina in appendice. Volume II:pp.392, con 4 tavole a doppia pagina in appendice. Belle e solide rilegature in mezza pelle, con titoli in oro ai dorsi e 5 nervi. Piatti fasciati in carta decorata, sguardie interne anch'esse in carta decorata diversa. Esemplare con dedica autografa dell'Autore al frontespizio.