18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A good introductory history, if not quite what the title suggests, December 20, 2010
This review is from: Marathon: The Battle That Changed Western Civilization (Hardcover)
In 490 B.C.--2500 years ago next year--a Persian army landed at Marathon, about 25 miles northeast of Athens. The King of Persia, Darius, was intent on punishing the Athenians for their involvement in the burning of the Persian capital Sardis some years earlier. But against all odds, the army he sent to subdue Athens wasn't up to the task. The Athenians were significantly outnumbered. The Persians were a formidable war machine. And yet some 10,000 Athenians and fewer than a thousand of their staunch allies, the Plataeans, managed to send the Persians limping back to Asia. The score card in the end: an astonishing 6400 enemy dead against 192 Athenian and 11 Plataean losses. In his book Marathon: How One Battle Changed Western Civilization, Richard Billows argues--and he's right, to my mind--that the battle of Marathon was a a turning point in western history: had the Athenians lost that day, Greek history, and western civilization, would have developed very differently.
Billows makes his case for Marathon as a decisive battle in his introduction, where he further discusses the three "legends" of Marathon: how the Athenians themselves held the victory up as a defining moment in their history; how, beginning in the mid-19th century, Marathon came to be appreciated by modern scholars as a pivotal event in world history (although in academic circles nowadays the notion of the "decisive battle" is unfashionable); and finally, how Marathon came to be associated with the modern "marathon" race.
After beginning his book with this focus on Marathon, Billows spends the next 150-odd pages discussing the background to the battle. In chapter one he gives readers a thumbnail history of Greece from the time of Homer to the eve of the Persian Wars, including discussions of hoplite warfare, Spartan society, and lyric poetry. Chapter two is an introduction to Persia, its geography and religion, the creation of the Persian Empire and its expansion and organization under its first three kings, Cyrus, Cambyses, and Darius. Chapter three focuses on Athens: the reforms of Solon in the early 6th century B.C., the tyranny of Pisistratus and his son, Cleisthenes' democratic reforms, and so on. In chapter four Billows discusses the Ionian Revolt, when the Greek states on the coast of Asia Minor attempted--with the help of the Athenians--to free themselves from Persian control.
Having set the stage in his first four chapters, Billows finally returns to Marathon in chapters five and six. In the former he discusses the battle itself, and in his concluding chapter he provides a quick overview of what happened after Marathon--the political, military, and intellectual developments of the rest of the 5th century and some of the 4th. In closing, Billows returns to the subject of his introduction, arguing again that Marathon was a decisive battle by considering what would have happened had the Athenians lost:
* The Athenians who survived the battle would have been deported and resettled somewhere near the Persian Gulf
* The Persians would have subjugated the rest of Greece
* The Athenians' various intellectual achievements--the great tragedies of the 5th century, the comedies of Aristophanes; the philosophy of Aristotle and Plato; Thucydides' History--would not have existed to inspire subsequent playwrights and intellectuals
* Athenian democracy would have ended a mere 15 years after its creation, a failed experiment:
"What that would have meant for the later history of democratic theory and democratic governing systems can only be guessed at; but it is obvious that without its most successful model, the story of democracy in ancient Greece would have [been] very different and likely much poorer; and the concept of democracy as a viable governing system, indeed the whole vocabulary of democratic politics, would have been radically different."
Billows's Marathon is a sober, competently written book. I think there is some potential, however, for readers to be disappointed with it: the book's title and subtitle suggest that the focus of the book will be squarely on the battle of Marathon and its consequences. What one gets, however, is slightly different, an introduction to Greek history as a whole that culminates in the battle of Marathon while making a case for the battle's importance. Billows provides much more background information than is really necessary for a book aiming to introduce readers to Marathon (the nitty-gritty of Solon's economic reforms, for example). One may contrast this approach with Barry Strauss's
The Battle of Salamis: The Naval Encounter that Saved Greece -- and Western Civilization, which, while by no means leaving the reader in the dark about the context of the naval battle, is much more focused on Salamis than Billows is on Marathon. So the title of Billows's book feels a bit like false advertising. It is, however, a very good (if not very exciting) introduction to Greek history that will be accessible to the general reader and to undergraduates.
-- Debra Hamel
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20 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good Stuff, August 17, 2010
This review is from: Marathon: The Battle That Changed Western Civilization (Hardcover)
Enjoyed Billows' research and analysis of Marathon; and loved his recommended reading list rather than the usual bunch of footnotes at the bottom of all the pages. Also, I agree with his using Greek-to-English letters for names rather than the Greek-to-Latin-to-English (i.e., Sokrates not Socrates, and Herodotos not Herodotus as neither "C" nor "U" occur in the Greek alphabet.)
Billows writes of 490 BC (Marathon) and 480 BC (Thermopylai) as times when battles could significantly change the course of history. He notes these ancient battles are therefore similar to Waterloo and the Normandy Invasion of WWII, and I think he's right. He also notes that in the last 55 years, military battles in Korea, Viet Nam, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. have not been as significant nor as decisive. Throughout Western Civilization, military might and prowess often appear more important than they actually are.
I also enjoyed Billow's reasoning of why the Spartans never showed at Marathon and why they only sent 300 (+servants/slaves) to Thermopylai--the Messenians and other Helots tended to revolt when Spartans left the Pelopennesos. I agree with Herodotos and Billows, the Athenian's victories at Marathon and Salamis (480 BC) really did save more-civilized, southern Greece from Persian dominatrion, while the Spartan-led victory at Plataia (479 BC) was more of a mopping-up operation of the demoralized Persians and their northern-Greek, Babylonian, Assyrrian, Egyptian, and Hebrew allies.
One more quibble, if a military battle like Marathon could change the direction of Western Civilization; what about the discovery (482 BC) of the world-class Athenian silver veins near Lareion? Who was the prospector who discovered the mines, which paid for Thermistokles' +200 Athenian triremes at Salamis. Whose to say military battles were/are more important than economic discoveries? The Athenians of 500-to-400 BC were indeed a special and lucky people.
I recommend Billows' "Marathon" to amateur-Classical-historians like me.
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting history; disappointing argument, November 27, 2010
This review is from: Marathon: The Battle That Changed Western Civilization (Hardcover)
The majority of the book is devoted to setting a historical backdrop for the battle of Marathon and its participants, mostly focused on the large-scale and long-term cultural and political movements that affected each side. And it's an excellent choice on Billows' part to concentrate his efforts there, because that's certainly the best part of the book. The description of the actual battle is slightly weaker but still well worth the time to read. The letdown comes when the history is over and Billows is left to expound on his thesis of "Marathon as a critical point in Western History". It appears Billows was just looking for a catchy title and way to sell the book. While his subtitle certainly does this, when it comes times to put up or shut up, his argument essentially comes down to "things would have been different". He beats around the bush for 15 pages or so trying to come up with something more compelling but ultimately fails to draw any line between the battle and today that doesn't get extremely hand-wavy.
Stylistically the book is easily readable, if not noteworthy in the slightest. Billows worst habit is illustrating a point he wants to make over a few sentences to a couple paragraphs with colorful explanations and historic details. Then as soon as you grasp his point, he comes back and whacks you in the face with a explicit single sentence summary of it. May work great in lectures, but it doesn't transition well to the written form where the reader is free to digest it at his own pace.
Overall, worth the read for the historical coverage in a popular form, but lacking when it comes down to making a convincing argument on the importance of the battle.
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