Democracy and Classical Greece: Revised Edition (Series II: Adams Family Correspondence) [Paperback]

J. K. Davies (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review

Davies has produced a perceptive, readable narrative, filled with sensible insights and enriched with a generous and judicious selection of quotations from sources...[He] skillfully interweaves social and cultural history with political and military matters. Students--and some historians--will benefit from his deft exegesis of texts (inscriptions, plays, philosophic pieces, anecdotes) and his cautionary reminders of what we do not know about the past...All in all, this is the best short history of Greece on the market.
--Thomas W. Africa (The Historian [UK] )

[Democracy and Classical Greece] manages in brief compass to convey through quotation the nature of the main sources and critically to assess their limitations, biases and restricted concerns, and seeks constantly not to be bound by these limitations in the attempt to tease out underlying patterns of development and explanation...Constant stimulation...fresh thought.
--N. R. E. Fisher (History Today )

Together these five compact volumes [Early Greece by Oswyn Murray, Democracy and Classical Greece by J. K. Davies, The Hellenistic World by F. W. Walbank, The Roman Republic by Michael Crawford, The Later Roman Empire by Averil Cameron, all available from Harvard] cover much of the history of the classical world, and do so with both ease and authority...For this new series they have been revised or otherwise brought up to date. (Washington Post Book World )

Product Details

• Paperback: 328 pages
• Publisher: Harvard University Press; Revised Edition edition (January 1, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0674196074
• ISBN-13: 978-0674196070
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #864,872 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars it coud be better than it is, December 23, 2009

By 

mjare "mjare" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Democracy and Classical Greece: Revised Edition (Series II: Adams Family Correspondence) (Paperback)

This book could be much better than it is. It contains many details about ancient Greece of the classical period taken from the literature (quotes from classic sources are in most cases interesting and properly chosen) and also archaeological sources. But style of this book is horribly dry, what makes this book even boring.

1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars very good analysis of interesting times, October 14, 2007

By 

Bruce P. Barten (Saint Paul, MN United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Democracy and Classical Greece: Revised Edition (Series II: Adams Family Correspondence) (Paperback)

I have been interested in history since I was young. As a boy, I heard so much about things in the Bible, finding out about things that were going on at the same time in part of the world that was also influenced by Egypt without having been slaves there, etc., I actually became more interested in philosophy than in the political structures of those times. Those who think they already know how to spell might struggle to get used to Sokrates and maps that have cities with different spellings than in the text: Corinth in the index shows up as Korinth on maps 1, 2 and 3, etc. Athens and Sparta played large roles in Greece, but Syracuse, the Carthaginians, and local groups struggled to control cities in Sicily and Southern Italy that are shown on map 4. The second edition, with a chapter that includes many speeches from the court proceedings in Athens, helps to show how court speeches depend on points of view that would be more likely among millionaires and billionaires now, particularly those who tend to be the purest of bastards, than among the lowly slaves that were captured when some cities were wiped out. Democracy sprang up in Greece occasionally, but that is only a small part of what this book is about, and modern life seems to be similarly demented for those whose intellectual viewpoints know a number of wide stances, etc.

1 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars excellent!, February 22, 2007

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tosque "tosque" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Democracy and Classical Greece: Revised Edition (Series II: Adams Family Correspondence) (Paperback)

entirely satisfied with the service: the book arrived on time and in perfect condition