{"title":"H A Drake","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"constantine-and-the-bishops-book-h-a-drake-9780801862182","title":"Constantine and the Bishops","description":"Historians who viewed imperial Rome in terms of a conflict between pagans and Christians have often regarded the emperor Constantine's conversion as the triumph of Christianity over paganism. This study takes a fresh look at Constantine's rule uncovering the political motivations behind his policies. Constantine, H.A. Drake suggests, was looking not only for a god in whom to believe, but also a policy he could adopt. Drake shows how these policies were constructed to ensure the stability of the empire and fulfill Constantine's imperial duty in securing the favour of heaven. Despite the emperor's conversion to Christianity, Drake concludes, Rome remained a world filled with gods and with men seeking to depose rivals from power. He shows how Christian belief motivated and gave shape to imperial rule.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50172446474513,"sku":"CIN0801862183G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0801862183.jpg?v=1750785759"},{"product_id":"constantine-and-the-bishops-book-h-a-drake-9780801871047","title":"Constantine and the Bishops","description":"Historians who viewed imperial Rome in terms of a conflict between pagans and Christians have often regarded the emperor Constantine's conversion as the triumph of Christianity over paganism. But in  Constantine and the Bishops, historian H. A. Drake offers a fresh and more nuanced understanding of Constantine's rule and, especially, of his relations with Christians.  Constantine, Drake suggests, was looking not only for a god in whom to believe but also a policy he could adopt. Uncovering the political motivations behind Constantine's policies, Drake shows how those policies were constructed to ensure the stability of the empire and fulfill Constantine's imperial duty in securing the favor of heaven.  Despite the emperor's conversion to Christianity, Drake concludes, Rome remained a world filled with gods and with men seeking to depose rivals from power. A book for students and scholars of ancient history and religion,  Constantine and the Bishops shows how Christian belief motivated and gave shape to imperial rule.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":50468145004817,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50468147003665,"sku":"CIN0801871042G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":52951871324433,"sku":"NGR9780801871047","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0801871042.jpg?v=1750980367"},{"product_id":"century-of-miracles-book-h-a-drake-9780199367412","title":"A Century of Miracles","description":"Traditionally, in the year 312, the Roman emperor Constantine experienced a \"vision of the Cross\" that led him to convert to Christianity and to defeat his last rival to the imperial throne; and, in 394, a divine wind carried the emperor Theodosius to victory at the battle of the Frigidus River. Other stories heralded the discovery of the True Cross by Constantine's mother, Helena, and the rise of a new kind of miracle-maker in the deserts of Egypt and Syria. These miracle stories helped Christians understand the dizzying changes in their fortunes during the century. They also shed light on Christianity's conflict with other faiths and the darker turn it took in subsequent ages.  In A Century of Miracles, historian H. A. Drake explores the role miracle stories played in helping Christians, pagans, and Jews think about themselves and each other. These stories, he concludes, bolstered Christian belief that their god wanted the empire to be Christian. Most importantly, they help explain how, after a century of trumpeting the power of their god, Christians were able to deal with their failure to protect the city of Rome from a barbarian sack by the Gothic army of Alaric in 410. Augustine's magnificent City of God eventually established a new theoretical basis for success, but in the meantime the popularity of miracle stories reassured the faithful -- even when the miracles came to an end. A Century of Miracles provides an absorbing illumination of the pivotal fourth century as seen through the prism of a complex and decidedly mystical phenomenon.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51000108908817,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51000111726865,"sku":"NIN9780199367412","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52616764096785,"sku":"NLS9780199367412","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0199367418.jpg?v=1751070480"},{"product_id":"wisdom-of-the-ancients-book-h-a-drake-9780197777374","title":"The Wisdom of the Ancients","description":"This book is about four cornerstones of modern thought that were put in place by people living in the ancient Mediterranean world. It covers approximately 2,000 years in time (from ca. 1000 BCE to 1000 CE) and spatially moves from the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in Mesopotamia (roughly, modern Iraq), through Greece and Rome, to the new Germanic states growing in what is now western Europe.  The four ideas, as author H. A. Drake proposes, are monotheism, the idea that there is only one god, not many; individual rights, the idea that there is a limit to what the state can order us to do; naturalized citizenship, the idea that the full rights and privileges of citizenship can be extended to people who have no birthright to them; and creation of a standard by which to judge the performance of states. It is easy, now, to take these ideas for granted. For believers, it seems obvious that only a singular, omnipotent deity can account for the splendour of the universe. Similarly, the common notion that individuals can stand up for their rights, that citizenship can be freely given, or that governments ought to be held to a standard of justice for all, is often accompanied by the assumption that, at the time they were introduced, such ideas must have been immediately recognized as superior and gratefully accepted. The record is far more complicated, and that makes the story of their success far more interesting. By discussing these ideas in their historical context with clarity and wit, The Wisdom of the Ancients reminds readers how preposterous they were originally and how different our world would be if they had not taken hold.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51080911487249,"sku":"NIN9780197777374","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":51202092368145,"sku":"NGR9780197777374","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0197777376.jpg?v=1750843918"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/en-gb\/collections\/author-books-by-h-a-drake.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}