Customer Reviews

The Oxford History of Greece and the Hellenistic World

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The Oxford History of Greece and the Hellenisic World is a perfect primer for ancient Greek studies on history, literature, philosophy and art, but it is also a great read for the casual history and literature buff (which is the reason I read it!) Spanning from the Archaic Period, with Homer and Hesiod, through the Classical period with Aeschylus and Euripides, to the curious Hellenistic world: a world of three empires (The Antigonids of Macedon, the Seleucids of Western Turkey through to Afghanistan, and the Ptolemies of Egypt) where the Roman influence was penetrating an already crumbled empire unable to defend itself against Roman cultural and military pressures. The Greeks still adopted the slow, inflexible, easily flanked and routed phalanx - no match for the Roman Legions which would soon topple almost all of the three empires.

I must make special mention of certain essays. (This volume is a collection of essays by experts in their fields: as such, some sections are better than others.) The histories are absolutely brilliant, enlightening and fascinating. The discussion of literature is a mixed bag, however. One of my favourite essays is one on Homer's poetry. It must be read to be believed - wonderful stuff. However, the chapter on Elegaic and Lyric Poetry I found to be inaccessible. I study English, and a lot of the discussion went far too deep, far too fast, and, coupled with a piecemeal historical background to be considered, the chapter turned to dust. It is certainly worth reading, but it by far the weakest chapter. The chapters on philosophy were, in fact, my favourite - sitting right up top with Homer. These chapters were probably the only truly "riveting" moments in the book, because the themes they deal with are so large, and the evolution so fascinating. The sections on mythology and religion are solid and informative. Thankfully art and architecture are not neglected, and the chapters concerning their evolution and influence are interesting, if not a little bit too far away from my sphere of interest. The depiction of the various deities and the like, however, was great and complemented the religious chapters well.

The maps and the historical chart (detailing events both social and cultural) are the best I have ever seen in a single paperback volume. The selected readings at the end of each chapter are both comprehensive and accessible, so full marks there. It is a small pity that there isn't a glossary of useful greek terms, but that is of little consequence and does nothing to tarnish this brilliant gem.

It pains me a bit to see that this book has only one review (now two) to it's name. It deserves to be read. As is said in the introduction of this book: "To see that such things can be true of people whom in some ways we find intelligible and recognizable can help to deliver us from the tyranny of the present, from the assumption that our own habits of action and thought are really inescapable, and from the idea that there are no alternatives. That is the liberating power of the past." (Boardman, p.8)

The past liberates us from ourselves and should not be forgotten. This is something I passionately believe, and I am not even a historian.

It is needless to say but I will say it anyway: buy this book and any other Oxford history you can find - or Cambridge history for that matter - and absorb it all. The details are not important the first time through, just withhold the themes and the power that comes from reading about a culture alive only in museums and through fragmented customs and throwbacks; of a people extinct or bred out of existence; and of a history lived before our current means of measuring time existed (this was long before the advent of the Julian Calender.)

I am rambling.

Buy. Read. Enjoy.

Whether you're a newcomer to Greek history or someone who has already studied diverse segments of it looking to organize your knowledge, this book will be an aid. It is essentially an overview of the main studies - aka, philosophy, literature, politics, military, eras, etc. That said, as it is a compilation of all these diverse things, it tends to become less specialist and more general (big picture). That is why people who are intensely interested in Greek history would be better off buying books specializing in different parts of it, then buying this book to clarify and put into context what you've learned from those other sources. Newcomers can make use of it too, but there will undoubtedly be parts they won't be able to make sense of due to their inexpertise. By and large, however, this book is accessible and to varrying degrees useful to professionals, amateurs, longtime students, and newcomers alike - providing they can tolerate academic language.

I am going to update this review, but so far the outlook is bleak. Given, this is the 1988 publication, but I have found very little grace in terms of style. Here is one example from pg. 33...

"Of Athens we can only say that Cleisthenes' legislation came in time to avoid trouble and that it was enough in accord with what was wanted to allow Athenians to do what later they did."

As an undergrad student I have written sentences far clearer and more concise than that and STILL had to re-write it. I would recommend a copy of Strunk & White's, "The Elements of Style" to whomever wrote the first chapter. This is not the only case, but a good example of cluttered writing.

Another problem I have noticed is the lack of clarity the author presents between his own opinion and the paradigm of the ancient Greeks. On top of pg. 31, the author refers to the tyrant as a "disease," and that a relative of Solon became "infected" by it. Now, if the ancient Greeks saw "tyranny" as a disease, then the author simply needs to re-write the entire paragraph to clarify that point. However, if he himself sees tyranny as a disease, he needs to stop projecting his 20th century moral preconditions into antiquity and just report facts.

Again, this is a preliminary review, but things have gotten off to a really bad start, I shall revise and edit if things shape up toward the middle.

Clearly this is the best volume for introduction to the Hellenistic world. Too general would be a criticism for a work not intended to be anything other than an overview.

Okay, let's start by making a disclaimer: this is an OLD book. It was first issued in 1986 as part of THE OXFORD HISTORY OF THE CLASSICAL WORLD, and it does show its age. It obviously hasn't been updated because it still contains references to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics as being a current government founded on democratic principles!

Putting its age aside, it's an okay read. The book is divided into articles detailing specific areas of interest: history, philosophy, epic poetry, culture, domestic life, etc. In other words, it's a survey of the Greek world. My problem is that the sections dealing specifically with history are so threadbare, and some very important topics are ignored completely.

There is no chapter on Minoan civilization, or even references to it, and the Mycenaean period is also absent. Why it starts with the Archaic period is not made clear. Perhaps in 1986 not enough was known to reconstruct either civilization adequately. Furthermore, discussion of pederasty is almost nonexistent. One chapter on poetry falsely states that pederasty wasn't a subject treated in epic poetry, when "Iliad" clearly portrays a love relationship between Achilles and Patroclos (though not explicitly sexual). Also, Haphaestian, Alexander the Great's gran amour isn't even mentioned!

The worst part of the book is Simon Price's reliance on Biblical literature to reconstruct areas of the Hellenistic period. There aren't many modern historians who treat the Bible as anything other than folklore, and rightly so. Equal skepticism is given to Herodotus, Thucydides, Polybius, Arian, etc., because they didn't use scientific methods to examine history. However, this book relies heavily on their work as well.

The essays on culture are much better than the essays on history. I particularly enjoyed the chapters on philosophy and "Life and Society."

I imagine this book would be ideal for a semester length class on Greece, but there are better survey history books than this one. I think it would have been better if the contributors had opted for a narrative structure closer to that used in The Oxford History of Egypt, which was very well done.

In conclusion, it's okay book, even if outdated; but it didn't live up to my expectations.

This book is a bit disjointed because each chapter is written by a different author. So, it doesn't flow as easily as it could. Also, some of the authors go on and on about their particular topic of interest. For example,there is an entire chapter on Greek drama that is nearly 40 pages long. A chapter on Greek art and architecture that is 34 pages long. For me, this was too much. It may be right for you, though. Ancient Greece by Thomas Martin was a better read and had more of what I was looking for in a history book on ancient Greece.

I own the "Oxford Companion of Classical Civilization", where all the contributors appearing in this volume have contributed there as well. Judging from the quality of the Companion even this volume must be a wonderful reading. The reason I write this is not to praise the book, but to draw the attention to the concluding remarks of the review below written by BCA Bortignon.

He claims that Greek culture is a "culture alive only in museums". And that it was created by "a people extinct or bred out of existence; and of a history lived before our current means of measuring time existed (this was long before the advent of the Julian Calender.) "

Mr. BCA Bortignon! Greece exists and there are ca 15 millions of Greeks speaking essentially the same language as the Koine, the language of the gospels. The Greeks lived long before the advent of Julian Calender, long after and up to the present, before you made them extinct. I fact Julian Calendar was created on behalf of Julius Ceasar, 1st century BC, by a Greek astronomer (Sosigenes of Alexandria), using a rather crude but simple estimate of the length of solar year (365.25) although the Greeks had far better estimates.

The Greek Culture is very much alive and spreading. In your wonderful country you had two times the Greek Olympics. Sidney's opera house is nothing but a slight extension of a Greek theatre. You are governed by a Democracy, a slight variation of the Greek type. If you are a scientist then you use critical thinking, observations, experimentation, axioms, theorems, proofs, free discussion. Greek inventions. If you are in the Humanities then you are still writting footnotes to Plato. In a very definite sense the Greek Culture is not confined to museums. It is far more alive and dominant than any other and you yourself are far more Greek than Australian.

Please make the necessary changes in your review, the part that you yourself call ramblings. Otherwise I will be forced to ask Amazon to remove your review which is otherwise very helpful.

This book does an excellent job of serving as a primer for studies of the ancient Greeks.

Very detailed and interesting information.
It helped a lot prepraring for our trip to Rhodes and AThens