The Histories (Oxford World's Classics) [Paperback]

Herodotus (Author), Carolyn Dewald (Editor), Robin Waterfield (Translator)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0192824252 | ISBN-13: 978-0192824257 | Publication Date: September 15, 1998

"The father of history," as Cicero called him, and a writer possessed of remarkable narrative gifts, enormous scope, and considerable charm, Herodotus has always been beloved by readers well-versed in the classics. Compelled by his desire to "prevent the traces of human events from being erased by time," Herotodus recounts the incidents preceding and following the Persian Wars. He gives us much more than military history, though, providing the fullest portrait of the classical world of the 5th and 6th centuries. This readable new translation is supplemented with expansive notes to help the reader appreciate the book in depth.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Carolyn Dewald is Associate Professor of Classics at the University of Southern California. Robin Waterfield is a distinguished translator whose version of Plato's Republic has been described as `the best available'.

Product Details

• Paperback: 840 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (September 15, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0192824252
• ISBN-13: 978-0192824257
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5.1 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #144,550 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

75 of 78 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Highly Readable, Nice Price, and Lots of Maps, June 22, 2001

By 

Timothy Dougal (Joliet, IL United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Histories (Oxford World's Classics) (Paperback)

This Oxford Classics edition has much to recommend it. First, it is translated into smooth modern English, which, while not conveying every subtlety of Greek, will nontheless help the present-day reader through this long work. Second, the price is under $10. Third, there is an excellent map collection at the back showing the ancient world as we see it and as Herodotus saw it. The notes, bibliography, appendices, indexes, timeline and glossary all make this a great resource for the student or casual reader. There is enough mention of content in all the other reviews. I just wanted to point out the advantages of this edition.

25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A wonderful translation of an historical classic., January 25, 1999

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Histories (Oxford World's Classics) (Paperback)

This new translation by Robin Waterfield is smooth, colloquial, and easily readable, comparable to Robert Fagles' outstanding new translations of Homer's Illiad and Odessey. Carolyn Dewald has provided 150 pages of detailed and highly useful notes, all unobtrusively placed at the end of the book. Ten maps show virtually every geographical detail needed to follow Herodotus's tour around the known world, and a detailed index makes finding people--though not keywords--easy. All in all, an enjoyable read.

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Magnificent text, great translation, helpful notes, misguided organization, March 2, 2007

By 

Daniel Pinto "obsessed with books" (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Histories (Oxford World's Classics) (Paperback)

Herodotus's Histories are a treasure trove of wisdom, anecdotes and sheer joy. In the words of Robert D. Kaplan, "Thucydides may have been the more trustworthy historian, but Herodotus would have been more fun to share a wineskin with--and is a better guide to the god-filled geopolitics of the current era." (Kaplan's remarkable article on Herodotus, titled "A Historian for our Time", is available at [...]

I fully agree with other reviewers about the beauty of this translation, which results in a fluent and pleasant text. I am also overwhelmed at the abundance of notes and commentaries about perhaps most paragraphs in the book.

The problem is, while the translation increases our reading pleasure, the organization of this edition does not help the reader: the use of endnotes rather than footnotes means that readers have to keep moving to and fro between the text and the end of the book. Worse still, there is no footnote numbering, so readers must turn at virtually every paragraph to the end of the book, so as not to miss possible clarification. Eventually, I decided to check before reading each of the nine chapters ("Books") and mark the endnoted paragraphs myself.

Perhaps Oxford's intention was, as another reviewer put it, to ensure that notes were "unobtrusive" and the reader would have the clean text before his eyes. I beg to differ: few modern readers could do without the additional explanations provided in the notes. And, if they felt they could, or so wished, they would have a wealth of translations to choose from, much poorer in notes than this one.

I think no other edition of the "Histories" has so many maps. These are necessary and helpful. But they could have been clearer. In some of them, it is hard to tell land from sea, for example.

I do look forward to a "Landmark Herodotus" similar to the magnificent "Landmark Thucydides", with notes AND maps exactly where they are needed, so the reader never has to leave the page he is reading. This may sound shallow, but it greatly facilitates concentration. And this, after all, is supposed to be one of the main benefits of a fluent and pleasant text in the first place.