The Splendor of Israel

Fülszöveg

In THE SPLENDOR OF GREECE, Robert Payne
weaves together the art, history and mythology of ancient Greece with the adroitness of an expert guide and the enthusiasm of a devotee. Thanks to his informed and joyous avocation of the past, we see today's crumbling temples, the desolate plains or islands that were great cities and the fragmentary statues which remain glowing as with their antique splendor.
The scheme of this book is the traveler's grand tour of Greece and the Greek islands: Mycenae, Phaestos, Olympia, Delos, Myconos, Delphi, Aegina, Athens, Sounion, Daphni, Eleusis, Corinth, Patmos and Rhodes. At each famous site he describes in detail the ruins to be found; speculates as to their original appearance; tells us what they were first used for, and who lived in the cities or made pilgrimages to the temples when they were new; relates the myths appropriate to the place and, often, discusses the archaeologist who discovered statue, temple or tomb and how he restored (or... Tovább

Fülszöveg

In THE SPLENDOR OF GREECE, Robert Payne
weaves together the art, history and mythology of ancient Greece with the adroitness of an expert guide and the enthusiasm of a devotee. Thanks to his informed and joyous avocation of the past, we see today's crumbling temples, the desolate plains or islands that were great cities and the fragmentary statues which remain glowing as with their antique splendor.
The scheme of this book is the traveler's grand tour of Greece and the Greek islands: Mycenae, Phaestos, Olympia, Delos, Myconos, Delphi, Aegina, Athens, Sounion, Daphni, Eleusis, Corinth, Patmos and Rhodes. At each famous site he describes in detail the ruins to be found; speculates as to their original appearance; tells us what they were first used for, and who lived in the cities or made pilgrimages to the temples when they were new; relates the myths appropriate to the place and, often, discusses the archaeologist who discovered statue, temple or tomb and how he restored (or ruined) it. Finally, Mr. Payne describes those treasures of antiquity which have been "liberated" from their Greek sites and taken to museums in other countries. For all those who have fallen under the spell of Greece this highly informative book will be both delightful and invaluable.
Robert Payne is well known for his writing in many fields. Besides The Splendor of Greece, his recent books include The Gold of Troy, The Holy Sword, The Holy Fire, Hubris: A Study of Pride and The White Rajahs of Sarawak. He has traveled extensively; he was born in England and got his schooling in England, France,-South Africa and Ghina. His studies included the classics, mathematics, pure science, modern languages and Russian literature.
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THE SPLENDOR OF ISRAEL
ROBERT PAYNE
Israel—the spiritual center of the Western world's religions, the locale of so much of its history, the vigorous site of a young state where even the desert will bloom—is the subject of Robert Payne's new book. Its splendor is the splendor of places made holy by the events of the Gospels, by the fierce and glorious epic of the Old / Testament, by the tumults of history long after the ancient titans were dead, by the heights to which poets and philosophers and artists aspired out of the inspiration of the Holy Land. It is a land alive and burgeoning today in ways undreamed of long ago. And it is this life, past and present, that has set Mr. Payne on his travels through the forests and the deserts, the .ancient paths where Jesus
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trod, the waters beside which miracles were performed, the city where David was king and where, today, men live and work and pray and quarrel and hope.
Some of Israel is tawdry; some of it is barren. But the country casts a spell on the visitor as do the still-vibrant places all men know—two thousand years of history or more, found sometimes literally in layers atop one another; the incomparable beauties of Tiberias; the magnificence of Jerusalem; the unchanged paths along the cliffs above Nazareth; the haunting landscape around the Dead Sea. Against this past can be seen young people charged with the vigor of creating their new state. And in the interviews with Ben-Gurion, Golda Meir, Martin Buber, and others less famous but no less representative of Israel, Mr. Payne affords illuminating insights into the men and women who have made a country a way of life.
No reader can finish this book without a sense of a land ancient in tradition, deeply meaningful in its past history and its spiritual heritage, and today pursuing new goals against an age-old familiar background.

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