Explore the vast range of titles available.

The present article considers one example, among many possible ones, in which tragic spectacle is likely to lead spectators neither to a sense of reconciliation nor to a recognition of transcendent albeit harsh justice. Alexandre Hardy's early seventeenth-century Scedase, ou l'Hospitalite violee (Scedase, or Violated Hospitality) serves as an example of the tragic representation of horrible actions and allows us to infer the emotional experience of the theatrical and reading public. The emotional spectrum of early modern French tragedy proposed here will include audience reactions different from that majestic sadness that constitutes all the pleasure of tragedy, as Racine writes in his preface to Berenice. Yet, even as the authors consider that the type of emotions both represented and provoked in their plays differs, they recall that seventeenth-century French tragic dramatists explicitly intended to awaken passionate feeling in the audience.

Tucci explores the scholarly works of military historians who produced excellent books of ancient military history. These historians of the ancient world have produced works ranging chronologically from early Mesopotamia to classical Greece to the decline of the Roman Empire, and categorically from detailed campaign histories of individual battles to biographies of famous ancient generals to broad surveys of ancient warfare. Among other things, Paul Cartledge's Thermopylae: The Battle that Changed the World sets the stage of the story with broad chapters on the two opponents, Achaemenid Persia and classical Sparta. Cartledge's use of well-placed plates, depicting archaeological relics and artwork, and his translations of key ancient literary passages are particularly effective in making his description of the early fifth century B.C. more vivid. As a military history, the narrowing tramework with which the author opens the book also helps to explain the strategic setting of the Persian Empire and the peculiar Spartan social system.

David Pellegrini, Book Review Editor, Performing Arts Department, Shafer 12, Eastern Connecticut State University, Willimantic, CT 06226, or via electronic mail: pellegrinid@eastemct. edu. Darkening Mirrors: Imperial Representation in Depression-Era African American Performance. Prentiss, Craig R. Staging Faith: Religion and African American Theatre from the Harlem Renaissance to World War II.

David Pellegrini, Book Review Editor, Performing Arts Department, Shafer 14, Eastern Connecticut State University, Willimantic, CT 06226, or via electronic mail: pellegrinid@easternct. edu. Please indicate areas of expertise and specify which title(s) you are interested in reviewing; an updated list of available books will be provided upon request. Darkening Mirrors: Imperial Representation in DePion-Era African American Performance.

David Pellegrini, Book Review Editor, Performing Arts Department, Shafer 12, Eastern Connecticut State University, Willimantic, CT 06226; or by email: pellegrinid@easternct.edu. Please indicate areas of expertise and specify which title(s) you are interested in reviewing; an updated list of available books will be provided upon request. Publishers and/or authors interested in having their titles listed for review should forward books to the above address.

In 1801 the Acropolis was an Ottoman fortress, its temples turned first into Christian churches, then mosques. The Parthenon itself had been blown up during the last Crusade in 1697, its columns shattered, and most of the sculptures that once decorated it thrown to the ground. The Greeks identified \"Greekness\" with membership of the Orthodox Church rather than the legacy of Pericles - they were ignoring their ancient ruins, when they were not chopping up the marble remains and burning them in kilns to produce lime. Lord Elgin came along only planning to study the Parthenon sculptures, but when he was presented with the opportunity of saving them, he leapt at the chance.

[Socrates] was accused of \"impiety\" and \"corrupting the young\" in 399BC - charges many historians think were invented by his prejudiced fellow citizens - and was required to perform his own execution by consuming hemlock. But now a Cambridge University professor claims that Socrates' trial was legally just and that he was guilty as charged. What's more, Professor Paul Cartledge believes that Socrates actually invited his own death. \"Socrates wanted to be some kind of martyr for philosophy,\" Professor [Angie Hobbs] continued. \"According to Plato, he gives an incredibly arrogant speech in court, saying, 'far from punishing me, they should be so grateful for the way I have helped them cleanse their souls, they should give me free meals for the rest of my life'.\" His most significant contribution to Western thought is the Socratic method of debate or Method of Elenchus, a dialectical method of questioning, testing and ultimately improving a hypothesis. Through asking a series of questions, the method sought to show contradictions in the beliefs of those who posed them, and systematically move towards a hypothesis free from contradiction. As such, it is a negative method, in that it seeks to identify and demarcate that which a person does not know, rather than which he does. Socrates applied this to the testing of moral concepts, such as justice. Plato produced 13 volumes of Socratic Dialogues, in which Socrates would question a prominent Athenian on moral and philosophical issues. So often cast as the questioner, it is hard to establish any of Socrates' own philosophical beliefs. He said his wisdom was an awareness of his own ignorance, and his statement, \"I know that I know nothing\" is often quoted.