Customer Reviews

The Greeks (Penguin History)

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I got in touch with this book as a mandatory reading when I was applying to study at Buenos Aires University. As usually happens with prescribed readings, I eyed "The Greeks" with little enthusiasm.
But to my big surprise it was a great read! Professor Kitto has done an outstanding work here. Now, after all this years, I treasure this volume in my library and read it again and again.

In very few pages he gives the reader a complete picture of Ancient Greece, from its origins till the advent of Alexander the Great.
Every main issue is described here: the Polis, their religion, the construction step by step of a unique civilization; art and war; literature and theater; philosophy and history; not a significant issue is left over. At the same time Professor Kitto succeed in writing a very straightforward account and an easy reading.
We may understand thru this book our eternal debt to that Mediterranean people. Nothing will be as it is without the Greek heritage.

A recommended read for students and any person interested in Western Culture.
Enjoy this trip!
Reviewed by Max Yofre.

Kitto has done a nice job with this book. It is an extremely well researched overview of ancient Greek history and culture. Quite scholarly, and written in an interesting way, he leads the reader through his research and thinking, not always giving definitive answers to cultural questions. In the end the reader comes to fairly confident assumptions of what the Greek world was, and is, like. His first chapters are quite good: Introduction, Formation of the Greek People, The Country, Homer, The Polis. The later chapters are less engaging, but overall a good scholarly read!

Reviewed by David Lundberg, author of Olympic Wandering: Time Travel Through Greece

The author of "The Greeks", a well-known professor who devoted a great part of his life to the study of Ancient Greece, wrote this book with an aim: help others to understand better the subject that he taught. In my opinion, H. D. F. Kitto fulfilled his self-imposed task marvelously.

Kitto doesn't pretend to write an exhaustive history of Ancient Greece, but rather an introductory book that touches upon many subjects without delving too much into any of them. As a result, after reading this book you will end up with a general idea of the culture, art, literature and historical facts regarding Ancient Greece, but you won't be able to say you know all about it. On the other hand, you will know much more about the Greeks, and the values that shaped them and motivated their actions. That is probably more than enough to recommend this book :)

I want to point out that even though the author doesn't oversimplify the subject at hand to the point of distorting it, he highlights so much certain central ideas that even those who read the book without paying it due attention will understand them. For instance, Kitto emphasizes the great divide that existed for the Greeks between themselves and the others, the barbarians. According to the Greeks, that divide was undeniable because only they had mastered the way of being truly "free". That certitude, and their consequent feeling of exceptionalism, marked all their actions.

Kitto says, in the introduction, that he strove to allow the Greeks to speak for themselves, and the reader gets exactly that impression from time to time. I don't know much about Ancient Greece, but I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I guess that is a good indication that even those who just want to dabble in the subject are likely to enjoy it...

I believe that "The Greeks" is a very well-written book, something that combined with the fact that it isn't overly long makes it the kind of reading material that almost everybody might be interested in. All in all, I highly recommend this book to you :)

Belen Alcat

I am rereading this book, and I'm inspired to share the good news. It is truly a remarkable work, conveying information in the same measure as passion, humor and reverence. A proud scholar of the old school, Kitto unashamedly reveres the Greek culture as he understands it. There are more modern works, which muddle in gender issues, and in other ways cut the Greeks to our measure; but this brilliant lens is the rare optic that inspires, draws in, engrosses.

Here is history as pure pleasure -- formidable in its learning, yet delivered in a style that is plain and direct, yet enlivened with color and wit. After you have read a few pages, you will have no doubts as to why this relatively slim volume is an evergreen among studies of classical Greece.

Kitto, who taught at the University of Glasgow and the University of Bristol in England, set for himself an ambitious aim: to probe the very soul of the Greeks, from the beginning of their literature and history in Homer and Hesiod, through the sublime artistic creations of the 5th century to the decline of the polis (inadequately translated, Kitto says, as "city-state") following the disastrous Peloponnesian war.

He avoids two extremes that would have hobbled such an attempt. Kitto neither gets bogged down in historical minutiae (as even the great Will Durant occasionally did in his masterly The Life of Greece), nor does he turn the work into a series of free-floating thought balloons of philosophy and theory. His observations about the spirit of these people who have left an indelible print on western civilization are invariably penetrating, the more so because he is careful, good scholar that he is, to illustrate them with specifics from Greek history and arts.

I'll end my review here because your time would be better spent reading the book itself.

After reading Gates of Fire, I wanted to delve into classical Greek culture. This book is a great intro to Greece from Homer to Alexander. The book covers the history, culture, philosophy, arts, and "mind" of the ancient Greek - all in about 250 pages. It does a marvelous job of introducing the reader to the subject. It would be difficult to read this book and not be astonished by what this civilization accomplished. My only complaint is a nit: the author includes many references to 1950's England that I did not understand.

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What a wonderful book on the ancient Greeks! Very informative and highly interesting. After reading some of the plays of Aristophanes, Euripides, Sophocles, Aeschylus and some of the Socratic dialogues of Plato, some modern books, including The Trial of Socrates, by L.F. Stone, I am starting to get a feel for ancient Athens and Greece. Add this to some of Nietzsche's thoughts and arguments against Socrates and for Greek tragedy and there is a great and inspiring culture and way of life to be admired greatly.

H. D. F. Kitto's book, The Greeks¸ is a great history book and an introduction to the Greek character, way of thinking, lifestyle, the art forms of comedy and tradedy, the Greek abitlity to accept fate of suffering, injustice and death, and yet see the divinity of this human life, fully living this life, to know thyself without excess. Also, how the political democracy, the polis is so intertwined and bound in and through out the Athenian culture, and through out Greece.

Now it's the polis, (city-state) the government of the people that truly fascinates me and I find it an amazing concept and this is what was known as democracy and is so far from what we have in our modern day. The polis was more than a political party, it was a community, both religiously (non-dogmatic religion, and this is very significant) and also a social and ethical entity with a high degree of flexibility and the ability to reverse previous decisions that were deemed to be faulty, such as the outcome of the city of Mitylene. All adult Athenian citizens were to partake in the polis and had an open voice in contribution. In turn they were listened to and had an active participation. The rich, the poor, the tradesman, the farmer, the aristocrat, all co-mingled and were completely aware to each other's functions, there was far less ignorance here as to what really was occurring - no secrecy between governmental departments as we have in modern day. There were no professionals, all were amateurs, no representatives, all represented themselves, no high-paid attorneys, all defended themselves, judged themselves and were balanced from being partisan by having such a commingled segment of society in active participation. It was truly an incredible governing system. This was a living community. And in this respect, it brings to mind a phenomenon defined as `community' by M. Scott Peck in his book, A Different Drum. It was truly a remarkable system that has never been repeated.

In turn the Greeks thinking consisted of very weighty matters with responsibility and this can be seen reflected in both the Greek tragedies and comedies. Some have written such thinking off as fatalism, but this is not the case, as such fatal destinies as in the oracles are coupled with the individual's freedom to choose within and bring about beauty and justice inside the limits of human existence. And this can be seen in the weaknesses and limitations of the gods themselves. For the Greek religion was far removed from the dogmatisms found in the monotheism of Western civilization. Symbolism and religiosity was thriving unlike the dead arid rationalism that permeates both secular and religious thinking of our day.

Now there are certainly downsides to the polis, and the Greek way of life as in the existence of slavery, in women's limited rights and in an Athenian league that policed the other islands and cities, in which such a small review does not permit me the space to relate on in what you will find in Kitto's book who goes into an excellent analysis of this and is a superb book to read.

Ultimately, it was when the polis got too large, too corporate and starting policing the other states to conform to the Athenian League in order to receive protection against the Persians. When Sparta requested the end of an embargo against them trading with Megara, Athens refused, so Sparta attacked, starting with the city of Thebes. And after two oligarchy take-overs, the weakened restored democracy of the fourth century developed into a lethargic disinterest in the polis, the Athenians interested in other things. Here the trust in a professional speech writer, Philip, the king of Macedonia, against the advice of the Athenian Demosthenes brought on his successor, Alexander the Great and the end of Greek freedom. Clearly, there is a modern day parallel in the U.S. However, it was with the invent of professionalism, sophism and individualism toward the cosmopolis rather than the polis along with the specialization of military tatics which favored the Athens polis taxing the others. This requried the professional over the amature and the end of the polis.

"To attend to that business of the polis was not only a duty which a man owed to the polis: it was an absorbing interest too. It was part of the complete life. This is the reason why the Athenian never employed the professional administrator or judge if he could possibly help it. The polis was a kind of super-family, and family life means taking a direct part in family affairs and family counsels. The attitude to the polis explains, too, why the Greek never, as we say, "invented" representative government. Why should he "invent" something which most Greeks struggled to abolish, namely being governed by someone else." p. 129

This book is really great. It briefly covers the formation of Greek civilization, it more thoroughly covers what is called "classical Greece" (the best part), and it ends by considering various other areas--myth and religion, the decline of the polis (city-state), the life and character and mind of the Greeks, and a tiny bit of philosophy.

The writing style of Kitto is outstanding; I bet he was a great teacher. It was a real joy to read this book, and I might read it again some day just to "hear" Kitto tell the story once more. Here are the opening lines (to give you a taste of his style): " The reader is asked, for the moment, to accept this as a reasonable statement of fact, that in a part of the world that had for centuries been civilized, and quite highly civilized, there gradually emerged a people, not very numerous, not very powerful, not very well organized, who had a totally new conception of what human life was for, and showed for the first time what the human mind was for."

Kitto mentions a few Greek writers in the course of the book (Homer, Herodotus, Xenophon etc.), and it will really make you want to read them. I am a philosophy student, and I feel like I have a better understanding of the background of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle after having read this book. It isn't, however, an exhaustive study on the Greeks; that is not what it is intended to be. Anyway, it's great. There's no reason not to buy this and read it; it's a quick read.

Ignoring this book in a study of the Greeks is like ignoring "Buckaro Banzai" in a study if Science Fiction movies. Old? Yes. Dated? Of course. Seminal? Without a doubt.

Read it right after you read "The Birth of Tragedy" or Campbell's "Occidental Mythology", that should make for a good one-two punch.

A must for anyone trying to understand Greek Tragedy, Greek & Roman religion, democracy, or why old dead white guys get all the press.

On the back of my copy of Kitto's book, there is a quote from Raymond Mortimer declaring this volume to be the best introduction to Ancient Greece he had ever read. I'm not sure if I can go that far with regard to this book; perhaps in 1957, when it first came out, that accolade would have been appropriate. However, just because I can't declare this book to be the best unreservedly, I still consider it to be an excellent text, and one that I have very useful in my upper-level undergraduate course in Ancient Greek philosophy.

Kitto has relatively short chapters on a host of subjects, including origins, culture, warfare, political life, philosophy, art, and more. These are arranged according to certain major facets of Greek life that we know - for example, Homer gets a chapter to himself. However, Homer neither arose in a vacuum nor did his work only matter during his (or her) time. Kitto doesn't address too much about the academic controversy over who Homer might have been, but rather addresses the work that we have which survives. That work includes an exploration of the direct and indirect influences on later generations of Greeks, who in turn have had profound impact on our own culture.

Kitto spends a good deal of time on the political structure of Greek life, from the early settlement and migration times, to development of small polities, to larger hegemonic times and the Athenian empire, brief-lived though it was. One question I ask my class to address out of Kitto's text is this - Sparta seems to have won the war, but Athens won the peace; what does this mean? Kitto gives a lot of insight into the competition between Athens and Sparta, and to a lesser extent other polities around the Aegean and off toward Italy; there were unified times in the face of Persian aggression, but more often there were less organized times, which allowed for a kind of international relations in microcosmic form. I once had a professor who longed to teach a modern international relations course using nothing but Herodotus and Thucydides - one reading Kitto can get the sense that there are many truths in this desire, given that many of the motivations of nations and many of the principles of politics among nations remain the same as can be found in the speeches recounted in Thucydides' writing.

Kitto clearly has a deep love of the ancient Greek culture, and parallels much of his own time with this period; he is also quick to point out the differences. This is perhaps the one weakness of this text. If one lacks a familiarity with Britain and British sensibilities and learning in the first half of the twentieth century, one may lose some of the references Kitto makes - for example, he makes reference to the Sophists as being akin to those who might host a seminar, `Did You Want to be a 1000GBP Man?' - the answer would be a resounding no today; he also alludes to `our political parties' which are clearly different from those today (and for those in North America, one might have really no hook upon which to hang understanding).

On the other hand, some things haven't changed. He also says of the Sophists that `Perhaps "Professor" would be a rough modern equivalent to "Sophist".' A challenge to remember, indeed! This is certainly something my students can understand. He also uses colourful stories such as Diogenes calling to both the perfumed set and what would be the Greek grunge set, `Affectation!' He also pulls from Herodotus the disappointment of Croesus at finding out that Tellus, Cleopas and Biton led happier lives than he (but alas, that they were dead, too...). There are many pieces that stick with one upon reading, and because this text does not go overboard in information, it fits together in a more easily grasped framework, too.

One might challenge Kitto's assertion that the Greeks were as superior as they are presented - `unless our standards of civilization are comfort and contraptions, Athens from (say) 480 to 380 was clearly the most civilized society that has yet existed.' However, there is no doubt that the Greeks advanced in directions hitherto unknown and rarely exceeded in a measure-by-measure analysis. This comes through with Kitto - a worthy text for a worthy subject.