Customer Reviews

Readings in Ancient History: Thought and Experience from Gilgamesh to St. Augustine

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I am only writing this as a response to the above review. I hope no one takes the gender remark seriously. The book is simply a collection of primary source readings from Ancient History (Greek and Roman readings comprising the bulk of this). How a book of primary sources can remain gender neutral is beyond me. The book is intended to serve as an introduction to the vast (and not so vast if you're actually doing research in ancient history) amounts of sources. Hence why it only has excerpts from the various readings. The idea is that if a person enjoys reading an excerpt from say Plutarch's Lives, then they will go out and buy it, rather than buying all the possible readings in ancient history individually. One subtle note about the book is that Bailkey's comments preceding each reading often relate them to readings from different eras. This can be very useful in an introductory history class.

Really, it almost isn't necessary to say more than that. Bailkey provides insightful commentary and summaries for hundreds of primary-source documents - a delightful compendium of ancient knowledge and a joy to read.

I very much like the way that different civilizations are represented as they developed simultaneously. This is a much more engaging approach to the study of history than the bland, textureless stuff being offered by many standard text books. Oh, and I'm a woman.

An extremely dry textbook filled with insults to the female gender. Not a good book, not even for basic research purposes. You're better off going out and buying the actual translations of the works it makes mention of.