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The Realness of Things Past: Ancient Greece and Ontological History
The Realness of Things Past proposes a new paradigm of historical practice. It questions the way we conventionally historicize the experiences of non-modern peoples, western and non-western, and makes the case for an alternative. It shows how our standard analytical devices impose modern, dualist metaphysical conditions upon all non-modern realities, thereby authorizing us to align those realities with our own modern ontological commitments, fundamentally altering their contents in the process. The net result is a practice that homogenizes the past's many different ways of being human. To produce histories that are more ethically defensible, more philosophically robust, and more historically meaningful, we need to take an ontological turn in our practice. The book works to formulate a non-dualist historicism that will allow readers to analyse each past reality on its own ontological terms, as a more or less autonomous world unto itself.
To make the case for this alternative paradigm, the book engages with currents of thought in many different intellectual provinces, from anthropology and postcolonial studies to the sociology of science and quantum physics. And to demonstrate how the new paradigm might work in practice, it uses classical Athens as its primary case study.
The Realness of Things Past is divided into three parts. To highlight the limitations of conventional historicist analysis and the need for an alternative, Part I critically scrutinizes our standard modern accounts of "democratic Athens." Part II draws on a wide range of historical, ethnographic, and theoretical literatures to frame ethical and philosophical mandates for the proposed ontological turn. To illustrate the historical benefits of this alternative paradigm, Part III then shows how it allows us to produce an entirely new and more meaningful account of the Athenian politeia or "way of life." The book is expressly written to be accessible to a non-specialist, cross-disciplinary readership.
To make the case for this alternative paradigm, the book engages with currents of thought in many different intellectual provinces, from anthropology and postcolonial studies to the sociology of science and quantum physics. And to demonstrate how the new paradigm might work in practice, it uses classical Athens as its primary case study.
The Realness of Things Past is divided into three parts. To highlight the limitations of conventional historicist analysis and the need for an alternative, Part I critically scrutinizes our standard modern accounts of "democratic Athens." Part II draws on a wide range of historical, ethnographic, and theoretical literatures to frame ethical and philosophical mandates for the proposed ontological turn. To illustrate the historical benefits of this alternative paradigm, Part III then shows how it allows us to produce an entirely new and more meaningful account of the Athenian politeia or "way of life." The book is expressly written to be accessible to a non-specialist, cross-disciplinary readership.
336 pages, Hardcover
Published September 11, 2018
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
October 22, 2021
This was just a great book. Really helpful for wrestling your way to methodology per with the crossroads (crosshairs?) between ontology, worldview, and the modern historiographical enterprise.
May 19, 2020
I started this book because I hoped it would provide some insight into how the Greeks thought about religion. It turned out to be a very academic treatise indeed; it reads a lot like a dissertation. I think you can get a pretty good idea of the gist of this book (well, ok, I didn't read the whole book -- how could I? -- but this seems to be what it's all about) from this quotation:
For example, to the modern eye, it may be self-evident that, say, the "Athenian economy" was an objectively real, material entity, while the goddess Athena was no less obviously a mere figment of "faith" or "belief." But to an actual inhabitant of the Athenian lifeworld, something like the reverse would have been the case. The fact that the gods of Athens were not readily visible did not for a moment nullify the truth that they were fully material agencies, the effects of whose actions were clear enough for all to see, in weather patterns, crop yields, bodily health, and so forth. By the same token, far from being a materially self-evident phenomenon, an "Athenian economy" would have made little sense at all to a classical Athenian. At best, it would have been merely an idea, and a very strange one at that (p.58).
But, while I think the author really is trying to make a case, it's often just painfully turgid prose ("far from the only specialist to recognize the metaphysical constraints imposed by culturalist and constructivist forms of analysis") that makes you think much of the humanities these days is all, well, nonsense.
For example, to the modern eye, it may be self-evident that, say, the "Athenian economy" was an objectively real, material entity, while the goddess Athena was no less obviously a mere figment of "faith" or "belief." But to an actual inhabitant of the Athenian lifeworld, something like the reverse would have been the case. The fact that the gods of Athens were not readily visible did not for a moment nullify the truth that they were fully material agencies, the effects of whose actions were clear enough for all to see, in weather patterns, crop yields, bodily health, and so forth. By the same token, far from being a materially self-evident phenomenon, an "Athenian economy" would have made little sense at all to a classical Athenian. At best, it would have been merely an idea, and a very strange one at that (p.58).
But, while I think the author really is trying to make a case, it's often just painfully turgid prose ("far from the only specialist to recognize the metaphysical constraints imposed by culturalist and constructivist forms of analysis") that makes you think much of the humanities these days is all, well, nonsense.
February 18, 2024
I read this after it was mentioned by Tom Holland in his The Rest is History podcast. I frequently think that we don't take people seriously for how seriously strange their ideas are to us. I was in a PhD program in Anthropology precisely because I thought it mattered what people's cosmological imagination was.
This book asks us to take the Greeks seriously in what they say about their cosmology. It challenges our own understanding of Greek history and culture -- and our supposed inheritances from it -- it by making sure that we listen to the weird parts. It forces us to ask whether we are reading ourselves into that history. This is a great use of postcolonial theory.
I don't know enough to really critique or evaluate the claims, as I don't count as a scholar of Greek history. But it strikes me as a really valuable corrective to the ideology that the Western canon projected onto the Greeks.
I would love to see this kind of treatment of other periods and groups that we connect to. What did the Vikings really believe -- to the extent that we can reconstruct it? Do we really take seriously what the people of Israel or Christians really believe? Do those beliefs matter? We tend to treat cosmological ideas as relatively insignificant compared to materialist concerns. But is that right?
I don't think so. And this book gives you tools for thinking about those questions.
This book asks us to take the Greeks seriously in what they say about their cosmology. It challenges our own understanding of Greek history and culture -- and our supposed inheritances from it -- it by making sure that we listen to the weird parts. It forces us to ask whether we are reading ourselves into that history. This is a great use of postcolonial theory.
I don't know enough to really critique or evaluate the claims, as I don't count as a scholar of Greek history. But it strikes me as a really valuable corrective to the ideology that the Western canon projected onto the Greeks.
I would love to see this kind of treatment of other periods and groups that we connect to. What did the Vikings really believe -- to the extent that we can reconstruct it? Do we really take seriously what the people of Israel or Christians really believe? Do those beliefs matter? We tend to treat cosmological ideas as relatively insignificant compared to materialist concerns. But is that right?
I don't think so. And this book gives you tools for thinking about those questions.
February 26, 2022
As another review said, the prose can at times be a bit tangled, but after all, the author is an academic. Even so, WHAT the author says is extremely important: Our views of history are incorrect. Why? Because historians try to understand past societies by viewing them in the framework of our modern world. And so? I've read elsewhere that those who do not know the past, do not understand the present. I recently heard an interview with a very very eminent historian who misinterpreted Athenian history in the above manner, citing Athenians' commitment to freedom [They had many slaves], their middle class [non-existent], and similar errors.
This is a book requiring some patience, but it is necessary if we are to understand this current era.
This is a book requiring some patience, but it is necessary if we are to understand this current era.
June 21, 2025
It shocks me that this was only published in 2018. That it takes so long for theory from one area to flow through to various other disciplines. And that there still haven’t been rewritings across the board. I want more histories that embrace the ontological truth of the societies they study.
Anderson tries to walk a line which I’m not entirely convinced of - embracing the truth of pluriverses without completely throwing out a belief in material reality / also embracing speculative idealism. I kind of think that if you’re going to do this, you have to go all the way. Otherwise it does just remain a slightly tweaked version of ‘worldviews’ rather than ‘worlds’.
More specifically, I am sceptical about the extent of his arguments about gender in classical Greece. I agree with his rebalancing against accounts who go too far and don’t acknowledge the importance of the oikos as part of the politeia, therefore the structural importance of woman. But you only have to read Greek literature or analyse Greek cosmology to see the deep, pervasive misogyny
My notes are way too long to paste here (a first?!)
Anderson tries to walk a line which I’m not entirely convinced of - embracing the truth of pluriverses without completely throwing out a belief in material reality / also embracing speculative idealism. I kind of think that if you’re going to do this, you have to go all the way. Otherwise it does just remain a slightly tweaked version of ‘worldviews’ rather than ‘worlds’.
More specifically, I am sceptical about the extent of his arguments about gender in classical Greece. I agree with his rebalancing against accounts who go too far and don’t acknowledge the importance of the oikos as part of the politeia, therefore the structural importance of woman. But you only have to read Greek literature or analyse Greek cosmology to see the deep, pervasive misogyny
My notes are way too long to paste here (a first?!)
April 13, 2023
4.5 ⭐️
No sólo está extremadamente bien escrito, sino que además plantea cuestiones que podríamos calificar como “revolucionarias” para el campo de estudio de la historia y que, en mi opinión, son a tener muy en cuenta.
No sólo está extremadamente bien escrito, sino que además plantea cuestiones que podríamos calificar como “revolucionarias” para el campo de estudio de la historia y que, en mi opinión, son a tener muy en cuenta.
August 8, 2025
if Karl Marx were to write a book about Athens, it would compete for material with this book. This is what happens when a critical theorist *tries* to do history. Possibly the very definition of "chronological snobbery."
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews