Bücher der Reihe Universal- und kulturhistorische Studien. Studies in Universal and Cultural History

While Human-Animal Studies is a rapidly growing field in modern history, studies on this topic that focus on the Ancient World are few. The focus of the volume lies on the Ancient Near East, but it also provides studies on Ancient Greece, Asia Minor, Mesoamerica, the Far East, and Arabia.

The present book is a compilation of studies on narratives of mythical origins in different cultures written by outstanding specialists.

Battle descriptions are usually seen as the raw material of the military historian, who uses them to explain why generals won or lost a given battle. This volume does not aim to contribute to this discussion; it rather approaches battle descriptions as literary texts that interact with the expectations of a given audience. Therefore literary traditions in structure, vocabulary and topics of battle descriptions should be explored. The transgression of genre-borders - also literary and fictional texts are included - and a broad comparative approach, combining evidence from the third millennium BC up to the 20th century AD, makes cultural specifics and differences more easily perceivable.ContentsWith contributions by Marcos Such-Guttierrez, Pavel Cech, Hilmar Klinkott, Wolfgang Oswald, Kai Ruffing, Oliver Stoll, Martin M. Bauer, Reinhold Bichler, Christian Mileta, Simon Lentzsch, Sven Gunther, Dennis Pulina, Johanna Luggin, Sonjar Koroliov, Magdalena Gronau and Martin Gronau.The EditorsDr. Johanna Luggin is a post-doc researcher in the ERC-funded project "e;NOSCEMUS - Nova Scientia: Early Modern Science and Latin"e; in Innsbruck, Austria.Dr. Sebastian Fink is a postdoctoral researcher at the Academy of Finland Centre of Excellence "e;Changes in Sacred Texts and Traditions"e;. 

Religion is closely linked to social development as it often serves as the ideological fundament of a society and one of the foremost expressions of its culture. The articles in this volume are devoted to the study of religious crisis in Anqituity and deal with these pheonomena in the Ancient Near East, Rome, Greece, China and India.

Dieser Band bietet eine kritische Auseinandersetzung mit dem Konzept der ¿Krise¿ in der Geschichtsschreibung. Die einzelnen Beiträge behandeln längere Abschnitte altorientalischer und antiker Geschichte, vergleichen moderne und antike Analysen von ¿Krisen¿ und zeigen sich wiederholende Muster der Erklärung geschichtlicher Veränderungen auf. Dieser räumlich und zeitlich breite Zugang zum Phänomen der ¿Krise¿ problematisiert das gängige Erklärungsmuster von ¿Verfall ¿ Krise ¿ Untergang¿ und regt zur Suche nach alternativen und komplexeren Antworten für geschichtlichen Wandel an.