{"product_id":"aeschylusas-suppliant-women-geoffrey-w-bakewell-9780299291747","title":"Aeschylusas Suppliant Women: The Tragedy of Immigration","description":"This book offers a provocative interpretation of a relatively neglected tragedy, Aeschylus's \u003ci\u003eSuppliant Women\u003c\/i\u003e. Although the play's subject is a venerable myth, it frames the flight of the daughters of Danaus from Egypt to Greece in starkly contemporary terms, emphasizing the encounter between newcomers and natives. Some scholars read \u003ci\u003eSuppliant Women \u003c\/i\u003eas modeling successful social integration, but Geoffrey W. Bakewell argues that the play demonstrates, above all, the difficulties and dangers noncitizens brought to the polis. Bakewell's approach is rigorously historical, situating \u003ci\u003eSuppliant Women \u003c\/i\u003ein the context of the unprecedented immigration that Athens experienced in the sixth and fifth centuries BCE. The flow of foreigners to Attika increased under the Pisistratids but became a flood following liberation, Cleisthenes, and the Persian Wars. As Athenians of the classical era became increasingly aware of their own collective identity, they sought to define themselves and exclude others. They created a formal legal status to designate the free noncitizens living among them, calling them \u003ci\u003emetics\u003c\/i\u003e and calling their status \u003ci\u003emetoikia.\u003c\/i\u003e When Aeschylus dramatized the mythical flight of the Danaids from Egypt in his play \u003ci\u003eSuppliant Women\u003c\/i\u003e, he did so in light of his own time and place. Throughout the play, directly and indirectly, he casts the newcomers as \u003ci\u003emetics\u003c\/i\u003e and their stay in Greece as \u003ci\u003emetoikia\u003c\/i\u003e. Bakewell maps the manifold anxieties that \u003ci\u003emetics\u003c\/i\u003e created in classical Athens, showing that although citizens benefited from the many immigrants in their midst, they also feared the effects of immigration in political, sexual, and economic realms. Bakewell finds \u003ci\u003emetoikia \u003c\/i\u003ewas a deeply flawed solution to the problem of large-scale immigration. Aeschylus's Argives accepted the Danaids as \u003ci\u003emetics\u003c\/i\u003e only under duress and as a temporary response to a crisis. Like the historical Athenians, they opted for \u003ci\u003emetoikia\u003c\/i\u003e because they lacked better alternatives.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Geoffrey W. Bakewell\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 029929174X\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780299291747\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e University of Wisconsin Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 08\/16\/2013\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 226\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.70lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 8.99h x 6.09w x 0.55d\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eReview Citation(s): \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eChronicle of Higher Education\u003c\/i\u003e 09\/06\/2013 pg. 16","brand":"Geoffrey W. Bakewell","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":46738974277887,"sku":"9780299291747","price":29.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_ac9b60a3-9647-42c3-820e-527f3affc492.jpg?v=1743276829","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/aeschylusas-suppliant-women-geoffrey-w-bakewell-9780299291747","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}