The Shape of Ancient Thought: Comparative Studies in Greek and Indian Philosophies

by Thomas McEvilley

Overview

Spanning thirty years of intensive research, this book proves what many scholars could not explain: that today’s Western world must be considered the product of both Greek and Indian thought—Western and Eastern philosophies.

Thomas McEvilley explores how trade, imperialism, and migration currents allowed cultural philosophies to intermingle freely throughout India, Egypt, Greece, and the ancient Near East. This groundbreaking reference will stir relentless debate among philosophers, art historians, and students.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781581159332
Publisher:	Allworth
Publication date:	02/07/2012
Sold by:	SIMON & SCHUSTER
Format:	eBook
Pages:	768
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Thomas Mcevilley is Distinguished Lecturer in Art History at Rice University, where he has been on the faculty since 1969. The author holds a Ph.D. in classical philology. In addition to Greek and Latin, he has studied Sanskrit and has taught numerous courses in Greek and Indian culture, history of religion and philosophy, and art. He has published countless scholarly monographs and articles in various journals on early Greek poetry, philosophy, and religion as well as on contemporary art and culture. He has been a visiting professor at Yale University and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, among others. He was the recipient of a Fulbright Grant in 1993 and has been awarded an NEA critic s grant and the Frank Jewett Mather Award for Distinction in Art Criticism by the College Art Association. His other books include Sculpture in the Age of Doubt (Allworth Press). He lives in New York City.

What People are Saying About This

Harper

...one of the great works of scholarship of our time. McEvilley has brought together complex and diverse data to weave a tightly organized, panoramic account. (. . . ) I should think that [the book] will become indispensable for any and all specialists on antiquity.
— Professor Katherine Harper, Indologist and art historian, author of The Roots of Tantra

Chapple

This is a wonderful book. The author has assembled material from the ancient Greek world and the world of ancient India and systematically demonstrated the interchange of ideas and mutual influence.
— Professor Christopher Chapple, Indologist, author of Karma and Creativity

David Shapiro

Reading it is like reading a novel. Thomas McEvilley has given us the novelistic anthropology of our time.