Ancient Civ.

 

Books

Three books are required. Some possible ways to get them are listed below.
Assigned Books
Ancient Mediterranean Civilizations, 3d Edition

by Ralph W. Mathisen. Oxford U. Press, 2020. ISBN 9780190080945.

$84.99 (list price, but see links below for possibly cheaper alternatives).

  • Getting this book:
  • Try to get the current edition, especially if you’re buying a used copy. The first edition is significantly different from the second and third, and page numbers will not match up with later editions.
Assigned Books
The Epic of Gilgamesh

trans. by Andrew R. George. London: Penguin, 2003. ISBN 9780140449198.

$16.00.

  • Getting this book:
  • I strongly recommend the Andrew George edition because he translated directly from the source. It also has a very useful introduction. If you get another edition, make sure it is based on the Standard Version of the epic.
  • I recommend against using a random online transcription of the text, as for this 4,500-year old text you definitely want an expert translation with good commentary and extrapolation such as the George.
Assigned Books
Four Texts on Socrates, Revised Edition

ed. by Thomas G. West and Grace Starry West. Ithaca: Cornell Press, 1998. ISBN 9780801485749.

$14.95.

  • Getting this book:
  • Four Texts on Socrates has Aristophanes’s Clouds, which we’ll be reading in class. The other works included in this text may help your interpretation of the play and especially your essay.
  • There are basic transcriptions of Clouds online, but again the intro and notes will be vital to your appreciation of the play, so you should use this book or another full-text book edition.
    • A full text Oxford 1921 translation of Clouds is available here.

The assigned books are available from Lehman College Bookstore and from Amazon and other online retailers (try searching aggregators such as Bookfinder for the best deals). Make sure you do so enough in advance that you’ll receive the books in time for the assignments.