Yale's Ancient Lives Series
Thursday 11 April 2024
A new title in another Yale series brings is an aposite moment to publicise one of Yale’s other important history publications - The Ancient Lives Series. This is a new and rapidly growing collection of biographies of important people from the distant past, but more than that as Yale describes, "The Ancient Lives series unfolds the stories of thinkers, writers, kings, queens, conquerors, and politicians from all parts of the ancient world. Readers will come to know these figures in fully human dimensions, complete with foibles and flaws, and will see that the issues they faced. A fuller description of what the series aims to achieve can be found here.
The series commenced in 2023 with 'Ramesses the Great’. The seventh book, 'Marcus Aurelius’ was published in February, with the eighth book 'Phocion of Athens’ announced for September. Each title is around 250 pages, somewhat shorter than a typical English Monarchs Series book, and their purpose is to investigate, as the series page says, “...motives and goals, thoughts and feelings, morals and values” of the subject.
The full list can be found at this page.
The Ancient Lives Series is edited by James Romm, who is based at Bard College in New York State.
The Ancient Lives Series is edited by James Romm, who is based at Bard College in New York State.