Customer Reviews

The Greek World 479-323 BC (Routledge History of the Ancient World)

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I am not an historian nor student of history, but just an aficionado. As such I got a big fan of the Routledge History of the Ancient World Series. This volume covers the period of classical Greece, more or less from the time when democracy had been already firmly established in Athens up to the life of Alexander the Great. The book has some very strong points, for instance by describing Greece in all its heterogeneity of places and political systems. It gives a very good analysis of the way wars (such as the famous Peloponesian described by Thukydides) came about and what their consequences were. What to my feeling is covered to little is the cultural aspect. In a previous part of the series, on archaic Greece (Greece in the Making) cultural aspects form a more integral part while in the present volume they appear more or less en passant. Yet it is the time of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle that is covered. May be these fellows were politically not very important, but still. However, this critique should not be taken as a suggestion to change the book, bnut rather to add a second volume on the classical Greek world covering Art, Philosophy and Science.

This book is devoid of exciting details, and assumes you already know the story, or are reading the sources. Its like a commentary on the evidence, Prosopographical, Archeological, and if your not a PHD or Grad School aspirant, dont pick it up, you'll find the dictionary more exciting.
There is a far easier and more interesting "Concise History of Greece" by Peter Green written in the 70's thats still available. It does use a great deal of Archeological, Geographical information, and is very readable. This Routledge book doesn't read well, and the exciting details are left out. Why skip the cruelty of Sicilian Tyrants, and not even have a narrative of them? This book is more like a guidebook that must be used along with a real narrative book, to kind of fill in the details. Its like the kind of book that would turn off an undergraduate student so much the student will forever loath Ancient Greece, for having to read this book twice, a 2nd time because they flunked the midterm. Its for the experienced Grad student, so if its not on your syllabus, don't make the mistake I did.