How have ideas of the tragic influenced Western culture? How has tragedy been shaped by its social and cultural conditions?

In a work that spans 2,500 years, these ambitious questions are addressed by 55 experts, each contributing their overview of a theme applied to a period in history. Extending far beyond the established aesthetic tradition, the volumes describe the forms tragedy takes to represent human conflict and suffering, and how it engages with matters of philosophy, society, politics, religion and gender.

Individual volume editors ensure the cohesion of the whole, and to make it as easy as possible to use, chapter titles are identical across each of the volumes. This gives the choice of reading about a specific period in one of the volumes, or following a theme across history by reading the relevant chapter in each of the six.

The six volumes cover: 1. - Antiquity (500 BCE - 1000 AD); 2. - Middle Ages (1000 - 1400); 3. - Early Modern Age (1400 - 1650); 4. - Age of Enlightenment (1650 - 1800); 5. - Age of Empire (1800 - 1920); 6. - Modern Age (1920 - present).

Themes (and chapter titles) are: Forms and Media; Sites of Performance and Circulation; Communities of Production and Consumption; Philosophy and Social Theory; Religion, Ritual and Myth; Politics of City and Nation; Society and Family; and Gender and Sexuality.

The page extent is approximately 1,824pp with c. 300 illustrations. Each volume opens with Notes on Contributors, a series preface and an introduction, and concludes with Notes, Bibliography and an Index.

The Cultural Histories Series
A Cultural History of Tragedy is part of The Cultural Histories Series. Titles are available both as printed hardcover sets for libraries needing just one subject or preferring a one-off purchase and tangible reference for their shelves, or as part of a fully-searchable digital library available to institutions by annual subscription or on perpetual access (see www.bloomsburyculturalhistory.com).