A Humanitarian Past: Antiquity’S Impact on Present Social Conditions

Adele Änggård

Nov 2014 · AuthorHouse

About this ebook

This book opens a window on our historical past. We find antiquity has drawn a blind over earlier and more humanitarian cultures, writing off their artistic and egalitarian practices while antiquitys social habits escalated stress. Psychologists have recently made us aware that stress has very negative results for community life. Simultaneously, archaeologists have uncovered information about Neolithic cultures and art that makes no sense seen beside ancient Greek descriptions. The more we learn about Old Europe, the more staggering and distorted the policies conveyed in ancient Greek myths, dramas, and epic poems become. Surprisingly, the Achaeans also show an intimate knowledge about their predecessors social values. Sadly, the Renaissance uncritically fell for the ancient Greeks version of history, seeing it as the cradle of civilisation and our cultural heritage. They have even passed on these ideas to us today. Discovering A Humanitarian Past pitches us into an exciting and previously unexplored part of the human story.

About the author

Adele Änggård grew up in a family that moved to different countries in Europe, where foreign policies and social questions were continually under debate. With several artists in the family, travel naturally extended her interest in art, which eventually found an outlet in theatre design. Four decades of costume and set design brought her into contact with ancient Greek dramas and the culture’s social relationships, which revealed close connections between people’s art and their mentality. While living in Sweden, her work took her to the USA, England, Norway, Denmark, France, Italy, and Poland. In Stockholm, she received her degree in archaeology at Södertörn University and worked for several Women’s Refuge Centres. The latter led to authorship on costs and methods of social denial.