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Poll

Votes: 2

Has anyone heard of a book called...

Author:

elenchos

Topic:

Diaries

Posted:

Jul 31, 2001

Comments:

History Begins as Sumer?

It's by Samuel Noah Kramer, IIRC. It covers about 30 important (and trivial) "firsts" by one of the earliest civilizations. Included in the cuneform tablets of the ancient Sumerians are bitter complaints about things like young people not having proper respect for society and especially their elders, and running wild in the streets. "The first sick society" is one of the chapters.

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I keep meaning to write an article about it, because in a single book you have evidence that many of the issues that seem new and perplexing to us today are in fact as old as civilization. I think it is important to have a broader perspective, especially as an antidote to nostalgia. I get really impatient hearing how wonderful it used to be before some supposedly modern degeneration.

Naturally, the complaints that society is going to hell in a handbasked from ancient China and Greece are handy here too.

Just one of my several projects that I have lying around.

	better yet (none / 0) (#1)
	by alprazolam on Wed Aug 1st, 2001 at 02:39:07 PM PST

	read Orientalism by Edward Said. or some other books about modernity, even without relation to the middle east. it's interesting to see how throughout history people have used (created) "traditions" that they want to return to in order to force political and social changes through. of course spend too much time thinking about it and you'll end up a post modernist or some shit.

	Thanks. I will (nt) (none / 0) (#2)
	by elenchos on Wed Aug 1st, 2001 at 03:52:59 PM PST

	I do, I do, I do --Bikini Kill

	Too late for most of us, I fear. (5.00 / 1) (#3)
	by dmg on Thu Aug 2nd, 2001 at 09:00:15 AM PST

	you'll end up a post modernist or some shit. time to give a Newtonian demonstration - of a bullet, its mass and its acceleration. -- MC Hawking

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