Customer Reviews

Civilization Before Greece and Rome

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

 

 

Saggs provides those "ancient civilization" classes with a fairly balanced account of pre-Greek civilization. However because of the wide scope of the book, it is nearly impossible to be thorough in any one culture. Thus it should be used to supplement the lecture and other research and not as the sole means of teaching about the ancient world.

The title pretty much sums it up. Saggs tells us stuff we never would have thought about otherwise - he has tidbits of info about the evolution of language, the manner in which the different cultures of the ancient world interacted... how they were surprisingly uniform in many respects and different more in application than theory.

He does good work in demonstrating the history of law and how it might have arisen out of commercial codes. This is a far ranging work which seeks to illumine our understanding of the ancient cultures and to raise our appreciation for them. He convinces us that though they were barbaric in many ways, yet they were no dummies. They met the demands of their day in an intelligent manner even if we know now the false trails they often took.

Given all that, it still is a bit of tough sledding staying focused as we go through innumerable examples of writing styles and various subsets of precedents. The same can be said of the other sections. Doubtless this particular work aims at a broad range of readers and it is often clear that Saggs expects his work to be read by his academic peers and critiqued as a scholarly effort. The average guy will probably want to scan the chapters and pick out the tidbits that are interesting and read those closely.

Although it is true that due to the wide scope of this work Saggs is unable to provide a thorough treatment for any one civiliztion, those subjects which he does focus on, such as writing, education, etc. receive a more thorough treatment than would be possible in a book specializing in one civilization. An overview of the overall trends in the pre-Greek world is the goal of this work after all, go somewhere else for a more detailed treatment of particular civilizations(Babylonians, and the Might that was Assyria[which incidentally are also by Saggs]) are both excellent). This overview Saggs carries off quite nicely, in an easy to read engaging style he reconstructs the Ancient World topic by topic, and shows our many debts to the Ancient Pre-Greek World that are often overlooked. Saggs is clearly an expert in his field, but this book is accessible even to the beginner. In summary I highly recommend this book. In fact I've read 3 of Saggs books(this plus Babylonians, and The Might that was Assyria), and highly recommend them all. Saggs is soo Awesome!!!

I'm no pre-classical historian, so I don't have the background to really evaluate the quality or accuracy of Mr. Saggs' work. What I can say is that for somebody with little more than a cursory understanding of the era, I found his book extremely helpful. I read it cover to cover, and in so doing, have gained enough of a background in the subject that to the extent I want to pursue any subject in more detail, I now have a good frame of reference with which to start. Additionally, the layout of the book, starting with broad backgrounds and history, and then moving into particular subjects (trade, writing, medicine, religion, etc.) is also useful to the individual looking for more information on a single subject.
My one concern in recommending this book is that it might simply be outdated. Mr. Saggs is extremely balanced in his presentation of the history of the period, and how our understanding of that history has changed with new research and findings, and so I worry that in the last twenty years, what was known to be fact at the time of the writing has been disproved or changed significantly.