Bücher von Numa Denis Fustel De Coulanges

In The Ancient City, Fustel de Coulanges hands us the skeleton key unlocking classical civilization—the Indo-European domestic cult—showing this archaic religion to be the engine behind the rise and fall of the classical world.In his foreword, Dennis Bouvard views The Ancient City through the lens of generative anthropology, pointing the way to a post-liberal understanding of our own social order, informed by the imperative order described by Fustel.

The deepest and oldest layer of European religion is almost unknown today, and yet it governs all subsequent history. This is the Indo-European hearth cult, the subject of The Ancient Family. Here we get a picture of the most traditionalist, nationalist, patriarchal religion imaginable, of a people gathered around a sacred fire, worshipping its ancestors, jealous of its gods, and sufficient unto itself.Taken from books I-II of Fustel''s momentous work The Ancient City, this volume can be read as a constitution of the primordial family structure, the father of all that came after it. The Studies in Reaction series collects works that challenge modernity, and this family structure is the perfect antithesis of, and remedy for, all that ails us today.

The Ancient City is Fustel de Coulanges' superb investigation of life and living during classical antiquity; a culture he felt rested and flourished upon religious observance.This fascinating history offers the reader an idea of how day-to-day life in Ancient Rome and Greece evolved and was sustained for centuries. Coulanges covers each major topic in sequence, beginning with the crucial assertion that religion what was held classical life together. This is swiftly followed by examples of customs and morals that defined interpersonal and familial life; marriage; adoption; rights of property and assets to name but some. Coulanges progresses to discuss the physical city. How a town would grow in size, what amenities and institutions would appear, and how religion so greatly impacted the citizen's life. Governance, through edicts, criminal and civil law, and the ruling council of a given city is examined.

Indeed, modern anthropology, as well as classics, owes a debt to Fustel de Coulanges, whose early insights in The Ancient City remain valid and provocative today.