Misinformation, Disinformation, and Propaganda in Greek Historiography - by Thomas Figueira & Rosaria Vignolo Munson (Hardcover)

About the Book

"Mindful of the present state of discourse on ancient Greek historiography, this edited volume explores the major themes of pursuing factuality, managing witness/source bias, falling into historical error and creating or confronting propaganda. Even the greatest ancient historians, striving for factuality and truthfulness, must commence from subjectivity"--

Book Synopsis

Mindful of the present state of discourse on ancient Greek historiography, this edited volume explores the major themes of pursuing factuality, managing witness/source bias, falling into historical error and creating or confronting propaganda.Even the greatest ancient historians, striving for factuality and truthfulness, must commence from subjectivity. Their works, when studied closely, reveal biases and conceptual or ideological distortions - their own and others'. For this reason, Misinformation, Disinformation and Propaganda in Greek Historiography strives to evaluate the issues which stand in the way of factuality in historical texts and records.

The contributors, all experts in the field, explore and question the accuracy of the historiography in question; the ancient author's fidelity to their sources; and the evidence presented in relation to inherited oral traditions. In this way, an ancient author's methodology is evaluated in terms of its probability, the awareness of its cultural variation and the influences which we can deduce within the texts. This volume presents an important contribution to the study of what constitutes fact and fiction within ancient Greek historiography.

About the Author

Thomas Figueira is Distinguished Professor of Classics and Ancient History at Rutgers University, USA. He is co-editor of Ethnicity and Identity in Herodotus (2020), co-author of Wisdom from the Ancients: Enduring Business Lessons from Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar (2001) and author of The Power of Money: Coinage and Politics in the Athenian Empire (1998).

Rosaria Vignolo Munson is J. Archer and Helen C. Turner Professor of Classics at Swarthmore College, USA. She is author of Oxford Readings in Classical Studies: Herodotus (2013), Black Doves Speak: Herodotus and the Language of Barbarians (2005) and Telling Wonders: Ethnographic and Political Discourse in the Work of Herodotus (2001). She is also co-editor of Herodotus: Histories Book I (2022).