In this book, Anne Porter explores the idea that mobile and sedentary members of the ancient world were integral parts of the same social and political groups in greater Mesopotamia during the period 4000 to 1500 BCE. She draws on a wide range of archaeological and cuneiform sources to show how networks of social structure, political and religious ideology, and everyday as well as ritual practice, worked to maintain the integrity of those groups when the pursuit of different subsistence activities dispersed them over space. These networks were dynamic, shaping many of the key events and innovations of the time, including the Uruk expansion and the introduction of writing, so-called secondary state formation and the organization and operation of government, the literary production of the Third Dynasty of Ur and the first stories of Gilgamesh, and the emergence of the Amorrites in the second millennium BCE.

Mobile Pastoralism and the Formation of Near Eastern Civilizations: Weaving Together Society

History

Porter, Anne

Ancient Civilizations

Cambridge University Press

An Altogether Different Language, a long-awaited first collection of poems written over the past sixty years, introduces Anne Porter as a poet of startling insight and wisdom. This is a spiritual collection filled with great respect for life and nature. Anne Porter has a remarkable talent for making the intangible visual through simple and elegant language.

An Altogether Different Language: Poems 1934-1994

Literature & Fiction

Poetry

Zoland Books

An Altogether Different Language

In this book, Anne Porter explores the idea that mobile and sedentary members of the ancient world were integral parts of the same social and political groups in greater Mesopotamia during the period 4000 to 1500 BCE. She draws on a wide range of archaeological and cuneiform sources to show how networks of social structure, political and religious ideology, and everyday as well as ritual practice, worked to maintain the integrity of those groups when the pursuit of different subsistence activities dispersed them over space. These networks were dynamic, shaping many of the key events and innovations of the time, including the Uruk expansion and the introduction of writing, so-called secondary state formation and the organization and operation of government, the literary production of the Third Dynasty of Ur and the first stories of Gilgamesh, and the emergence of the Amorrites in the second millennium BCE.

As a child growing up in the once-beautiful city of Budapest, Anna Porter’s grandfather told her stories of heroes and strife and survival, some as old as the Carpathian basin, some still holding the sting of recent war and hardship. Some were fanciful, most were true, and all gave her a personal sense of history, both national and familial. This compulsively readable saga blends one family’s story with that of its homeland during one of the 20th century’s most tumultuous periods.

The Storyteller: A Memoir of Secrets, Magic and Lies

Biographies & Memoirs

Community & Culture

Anchor Canada

Living Things contains all the poems in Porter’s National Book Award Finalist collection, An Altogether Different Language, plus forty-four new works. David Shapiro writes in his foreword, “Anne Porter’s diction is as modest as that of William Carlos Williams or of a poet she nurtured as a houseguest for many years, James Schuyler. . . . She has the quality of paying attention to ultimate reality that Fairfield Porter, who painted her so often alone and with their five children, told me should be the conclusion of every sermon. . . . She is an American religious poet of stature who reminds us that the idea of the holy is still possible for us.” Living Things is a book for any lover of fine poetry, but will be particularly inspiring and meaningful to Christians whose faith is strong, and would make a beautiful gift.

Living Things: Collected Poems

History & Criticism

Steerforth

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Porter, Anne. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Porter, Anne

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Porter, Anne. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Mobile Pastoralism and the Formation of Near Eastern Civilizations: Weaving Together Society

An Altogether Different Language: Poems 1934-1994

An Altogether Different Language

Mobile Pastoralism and the Formation of Near Eastern Civilizations: Weaving Together Society

The Storyteller: A Memoir of Secrets, Magic and Lies

Living Things: Collected Poems