M.I. Finley
M. I. Finley (1912-1986), the son of Nathan Finkelstein and Anna Katzellenbogen, was born in New York City. He graduated from Syracuse University at the age of fifteen and received an MA in public law from Columbia, before turning to the study of ancient history. During the Thirties Finley taught at Columbia and City College and developed an interest in the sociology of the ancient world that was shaped in part by his association with members of the Frankfurt School who were working in exile in America. In 1952, when he was teaching at Rutgers, Finley was summoned before the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee and asked whether he had ever been a member of the Communist Party. He refused to answer, invoking the Fifth Amendment; by the end of the year he had been fired from the university by a unanimous vote of its trustees. Unable to find work in the US, Finley moved to England, where he taught for many years at Cambridge, helping to redirect the focus of classical education from a narrow emphasis on philology to a wider concern with culture, economics, and society. He became a British subject in 1962 and was knighted in 1979. Among Finley's best-known works are The Ancient Economy, Ancient Slavery and Modern Ideology, and The World of Odysseus.
From the Review
June 3, 1971: Ancient Technocrats
The Muses at Work edited by Carl Roebuck
Technology in the Ancient World by Henry Hodges
Moving the Obelisks by Bern Dibner
The Ancient Engineers by L. Sprague de Camp
Agricultural Implements of the Roman World by K. D. White
Roman Farming by K. D. White
May 7, 1970: Roman Imperialism (letter)
March 12, 1970: The End of Atlantis (letter)
January 29, 1970: A Profitable Empire
Roman Imperialism in the Late Republic by E. Badian
The Roman Empire and Its Neighbours by Fergus Millar
The Climax of Rome by Michael Grant
The Decline of Rome by Joseph Vogt, translated by Janet Sondheimer
December 4, 1969: Back to Atlantis
Atlantis The Truth Behind the Legend by A.G. Galanopoulos, by Edward Bacon
Lost Atlantis New Light on an Old Legend by J.V. Luce
May 22, 1969: Atlantis or Bust
Voyage to Atlantis by James W. Mavor Jr.
November 21, 1968: Et tu, Teddy White
Caesar at the Rubicon by Theodore H. White
The Authoress of the Odyssey by Samuel Butler
June 20, 1968: Up from Democritus
Democritus and the Sources of Greek Anthropology Association) by Thomas Cole
The Idea of Progress in Classical Antiquity by Ludwig Edelstein
December 7, 1967: Competent Authorities (letter)
November 23, 1967: Daedalus Lives!
The Maze Maker by Michael Ayrton
September 14, 1967: Plutarch, Historical Novelist
Plutarch and His Times by R.H. Barrow
Julius Caesar, A Political Biography by J.P.V.D. Balsdon
August 3, 1967: Digging the Trojans
The Palace of Nestor at Pylos in Western Messenia: Vol. I, The Buildings and Their Contents by Carl W. Blegen, by Marion Rawson
Mycenae and the Mycenaean Age by George E. Mylonas
June 1, 1967: Trivia Preferred (letter)
May 18, 1967: UnRoman Activities
The Mask of Jove by Stringfellow Barr
Enemies of the Roman Order by Ramsay MacMullen
March 23, 1967: The Classical Cold War
Thucydides and the Politics of Bipolarity by Peter J. Fliess
The Reluctant Warriors by Donald Armstrong
The Political Background of Aeschylean Tragedy by Anthony J. Podlecki
January 26, 1967: The Idea of Slavery
The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture by David Brion Davis
September 22, 1966: Name Calling (letter)
August 18, 1966: Greek to Him
Enter Plato by Alvin W. Gouldner
Plato's Thought in the Making by J.E. Raven
February 17, 1966: Must We Dig?
Introduction to Archaeology by Shirley Gorenstein
They Found the Buried Cities by Robert Wauchope
Testaments of Time by Leo Deuel
New Roads to Yesterday edited by Joseph R. Caldwell
Marine Archaeology edited by Joan du Plat Taylor
Most Ancient Egypt by William C. Hayes, edited by Keith C. Seele
October 14, 1965: Good and Bad History
Ancient Mesopotamia by A. Leo Oppenheim
Daily Life in Greece at the Time of Pericles by Robert Flacelière, translated by Peter Green
March 11, 1965: Jesus and the Jews (letter)
March 11, 1965: The Anonymity of Antiquity
Greece in the Bronze Age by Emily Vermeule
The Mycenaeans by Lord William Taylour
January 28, 1965: The Jews and the Death of Jesus
December 17, 1964: Letters (letter)
November 5, 1964: Etruscan Things
Etruscan Culture, Land and People by Axel Boethius. and others. with the collaboration of King Gustav Adolf of Sweden, translated by N.G. Sahlin
Those Mysterious Etruscans by Agnes Carr Vaughan
The Etruscans by Zacharie Mayani, translated by Patrick Evans
The Etruscans by Emeline Richardson
August 20, 1964: The Origins of Christianity
The Primitive Church by Maurice Goguel, translated by H.C. Snape
May 28, 1964: Alsop's Archeology (letter)
April 16, 1964: Alsop's Archaeology
From the Silent Earth by Joseph Alsop
March 5, 1964: Christian Beginnings
Greek Myths and Christian Mystery by Hugo Rahner, by S.J., translated by Brian Batteshaw
December 12, 1963: Bogus Togas
The Civilization of Rome by Pierre Grimal, translated by W.S. Maguiness
The Revolutions of Ancient Rome by F.R. Cowell
October 17, 1963: In a Nutshell
The Rise Of The West by William H. McNeill
From New York Review Books
 | The World of Odysseus The World of Odysseus provides a vivid picture of the Greek Dark Ages, its men and women, works and days, morals and values. |