Customer Reviews

Ancient Greece: A Political, Social, and Cultural History

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The $70 dollar textbook version of this work admirably fills its role as an introductory college text. However, the edition available here and at general bookstores is photo-offset in black and white, and consequently the many color maps and photographs in the original lose their visual splendor. For the general reader I would recommend instead Thomas Martin's "Ancient Greece: From Prehistoric to Hellenistic Times," which is just as good as Pomeroy et al. and less than half the price.

One of the best things about this book is that it's current and up to date on the most recent dicoveries in ancient Greek history. It provides the reader with a clear and organized history of Greece which both the novice and student can appreciate. It also includes great original sources, which are sometimes difficult to come by, and excellent maps. This is a great review for pulling all the facts together.

Despite a few irritating editorial glitches, this book fills an important void for those trying to integrate greek classical literature with historical and social science insight. Even if you know much of the period, reading this book will give periodic nuggets of information, and gems of integrative insight. The novice, non-technical reader will find this the best overall introduction available.

Wow, what a masterpiece! I started my self-conducted study of ancient Greek history with a different textbook. A good one but it did not impress me quite as much as this one. Written in a clear and fluent language, covering the whole range of Greece's ancient histoy and enriched with excellent pictures and diagrams, it makes the reading not only highly informative but also pleasant and entertaining, giving both beginners and students in the area a solid foundation for further and more specialised reading. It was sad to read some of the shallow and one-sided comments on here from people who certainly don't have the capability to realize the authors' didactic skill to reach out to a broad spectrum of readers of such a complex, broad and magnificent subject. This text rekindled my passion for the ancient world and gave me a great deal of motivation to pursue further reading on other aspects of ancient Hellas such as Religion, Politics, Mythology and so forth. If you're looking for a solid foundation and inspiration, I strongly recommend this book. Hail Pallas Athena!

I've used this text in my Greek Civilization course and I find that it has a wide range of material and reflects the latest trends in scholarship. For some courses I prefer Demand's History of Ancient Greece because it is more concise and better written--the short chapters give me more freedom to assign original Greek texts. But the price for that small text is outrageous!

The reason I'm provoked to write this review is I'm looking over the reading I assigned my students for today. See Pomeroy p. 246, the first paragraph on the Peloponnesian War, beginning "Avoiding war was particularly important when the Greeks has such precious achievements to protect in so many areas." The paragraph goes downhill from there. A horrible, scattered introduction which does nothing to convey why this central episode of Greek history was so important to the Greeks and retains its importance today. On many occasions the blah prose of this text renders the most interesting moments of Greek history dull and soporific.

Luckily, this was the first book I ever read about Ancient Greece and I feel very fortuneate about it. Book is very comprehensive in many ways, and it is both extremely entertaining as well as informative. There is just about everything you need to know. I had fragments of information that I have gathered through out my life and this book just filled the missing gap. This book did not just lay facts, but had various parables and also had interesting references from many other sources. It want into details of many lives and I learned about Alexander the Great, Plato, about Sparta and contrasting Athens and more. This book is quite long but never boring, and you can read it like any other fiction books. Some topics will interest you more and will lead you to other books. In my case I have bought Plutarch's lives.

Not a bad overall introduction to ancient Greece. However, the authors seem to spend way too much of their time talking about the exceptions that prove the rule and about what ancient Greece could have been rather than discussing the cold, hard facts of ancient Greek life. For example, the authors feel the need to constantly quote and discuss the lone individual from ancient Greece who happened to think that slavery or the disenfranchisement of women were unjust, meanwhile glossing over the fact that ancient Greeks actively practiced slavery and actively disenfranchised women. Often, the book became more than apologetic for the ancient Greeks than any real examination of the truth of ancient Greece. As long as the reader approaches this book with at least a basic understanding of the harsh realities of ancient Greece and an appreciation for the fact that the ancient Greeks did not adhere to modern Western mores, this book is, overall, a and worthwhile introduction to ancient Greece.

Clearly written, well-organized information, with interesting illustrations, combine to make a really good textbook. No wonder the professor chose this one!

The enormous scope of this treatment--a cramming-in of all these facets of ancient Greek history--almost set the book up for inevitable trouble, but somehow it works. The idea might have been better delineated in several volumes, but all the chief threads that intertwined to make ancient Greece worth writing about, eventually(!) are identified and given their due unraveling and then relacing. The pre-Mycenaean treatment is very very probative and supports the infrastructure of this history, while I think the various "walkabouts" (e.g. Athenian feminist issues) are indicative of editorial laxity, perhaps? Basically, sometimes there is too much that can distract from the trajectory of this history, and trajectory is crucial when composing an account covering this amount of time...to say nothing of the daunting amount of material that deserves primary treatment in such an account. Greek religion and the emergence of learning are wonderfully treated, military development, etc. It's all here (and then some), and the sum is surprisingly cohesive, but then again, it has to be. One book to do it all. Or try to do it all. Readable, sturdy style. Just engaging enough. Still, the intelligent lay reader could do a great deal worse by not including this on one's library shelf. Verdict: recommended and worthy.

I agree with the sentiment of other reviewers: the introductions to many of the chapters contain 'committee-speak,' which often works to detract from the reader's enthusiasm as she approaches a new chapter. However, that aside, this textbook has everything I would expect from an introductory history: primary sources, great scholarship, plenty of photographs, a thorough treatment of each period (start to finish), and a consistent pattern of presentation (context, sources, history, conclusion). I've got nothing thick to complain about; this is a great introductory textbook.