The Spartans (Hardcover)

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Legendary for their ferocious combat skills, the Spartans built a warrior culture in ancient Greece unsurpassed for its courage and military prowess. Eminent historian Cartledge (Spartan Reflections) provides a remarkable chronicle of Sparta's rise and fall, from its likely origins around 1100 B.C. to the height of its fame and glory in the battle of Thermopylae in 480 B.C. and its fall in the fourth century B.C. The Spartans built their society through conquest and subjugation, ruling over their subject peoples with an iron hand and putting down revolts with devastating might. Between 490 and 479, Sparta joined Athens in fighting the Persians in three key wars-Thermopylae, Plataea and Mycale-that contributed to the demise of Persian power and the rise of Hellenistic power on the Mediterranean. Cartledge punctuates his absorbing tale with brief, engaging biographies of the city-state's kings from Lycurgus, the earliest Spartan leader, who brought constitutional law to the city, to Leonidas, who led the Spartans at Thermopylae. According to Cartledge, the Spartans' legacy to Western culture includes devotion to duty, discipline, the willingness to sacrifice individual life for the greater good of the community and the nobility of arms in a cause worth dying for. Cartledge's crystalline prose, his vivacious storytelling and his lucid historical insights combine here to provide a first-rate history of the Spartans, their significance to ancient Greece and their influence on our culture. It ties in to a PBS series to air this summer. 27 b&w illus., 3 maps.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

To project civic-mindedness or combativeness, American towns and school teams have appropriated the name of Sparta--so who were the Spartans and why do we care? So asks Cartledge, a Cambridge University scholar whose engaging narrative tries to discern the authenticity of events and personalities known only through fragmentary written or archaeological evidence, which can be mythical, partisan, or propagandistic. Cartledge spans Sparta's entire existence but concentrates on the century from the Persian invasions to its collapse following its triumph over Athens in 404 B.C.E. Presenting Sparta's military and diplomatic policies, the author studs his account with lively sketches of Spartan leaders, above all Leonidas. As embodiments of Sparta's warrior caste at the Battle of Thermopylae (480 B.C.E.), Leonidas and his 300 hoplites have redounded down the millennia, most recently in the historical novel Gates of Fire by Steven Pressfield (1998), which will soon be made into a movie. In his panorama of the real Sparta, Cartledge cloaks his erudition with an ease and enthusiasm that will excite readers from page one. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Overlook Hardcover; 1 edition (May 15, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1585674028
• ISBN-13: 978-1585674022
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (41 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #443,020 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

52 of 58 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ghosts of heroes, June 20, 2004

By	D. Roberts "Hadrian12" (Battle Creek, Michigan United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

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Paul Cartledge of Cambridge university is the Secretariat of Laconian scholars, and he's more than a couple of links ahead of the rest of the field. By far & away he is the premiere authority in the world on all things Spartan. He is the primary Hellenist that other scholars use to quote in their works.

With that in mind, it is natural that Cartledge would be the preferred choice to write a mainstream book about the history of the Spartans. That, in fact, is precisely what he has done with the present study. This is by far the most accessible works in the Cartledge canon; prior knowledge of Greek history is not necessary to engage the text.

By the same token, what must be remembered is that this is an overview of Lacedamon history. While most everyone will learn a great deal from this work (whether they possess an understanding of classical history or not), I would nevertheless recommend other works by Cartledge for those who wish to dig deeper into the Spartan archives. SPARTAN REFLECTIONS would be a good place to start.

One of the few beefs I have w/the present work is that the author tends to skip around chronologically quite a bit. While not a serious impediment for one to decide against purchasing this book, it nevertheless can get a wee bit annoying.

Possibly the very best attribute of this work is that it gives a balanced portrayal of the ancient Lacedamons. It is easy for we moderns to have an enormous admiraton for their military prowess and at the same time be mortified by the reprehensible way in which they treated their slaves (Helots).

Both of these reactions are all too human. Some authors have concentrated soley on the one while neglecting the other. Cartledge, on the other hand, strikes a nice Aristotelian Golden Mean. He does not deify the Spartans, nor does he demonize them. Rather, he simply tells us of their history the way it really happened.

If you're looking for an introductory book on Spartan history, this just might be an ideal place to start. In addition to the standard text are myriad paintings as well as some photographs of Spartan artifacts. All-in-all, a must-have book for the philhellene.

94 of 114 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not for General Readers, July 30, 2003

By	Brian D. Rubendall (Oakton, VA) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Author Paul Cartledge quite obviously knows his stuff, and shows it in his book "The Spartans." Unfortunately, it appears that he knows his stuff a little too well for his book to be of much interest to non-academic readers. This is surprising, given that the book is being marketed as a companion piece to an upcoming PBS special about Greece's legendary warriors. Though the book is relatively brief at around 300 pages, it is so packed full of dates, names, places and events as to become bewildering to anyone who is not already intimately familiar with the subject matter. I'm a history buff myself, but I had a hard time following the narrative. The author writes as if he's addressing graduate level history students with a speciality in the subject.

Overall, "The Spartans" is very well researched, but will be of little interest to general readers.

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A scholarly work, June 23, 2003

By A Customer

Books for the general reader tend to be written in a very chatty and friendly way; the authors are often non-experts in the field and, although interesting, these books may contain errors ultimately due to the authors' understandable lack of knowledge in the field. At the other end of the spectrum are books written by experts for experts such that the text is essentially unintelligible to the general reader. Finally, there are many books that fall, to varying dregrees, in-between these two extremes, that is, the friendly writing style and the expert author, and this book is clearly one of them. The author is a well-respected expert in ancient history with specialization in ancient Spartan history. Readers get the benefit of expert knowledge presented in a most accessible manner. The prose is clear and written in a very engaging professional style. The author clearly states his references and often adds his own views on various matters - definitely a plus. I cannot imagine a more thorough history of ancient Sparta in such a short book, i.e., on average, there is so much information per page that I, for one, would benefit by reading it again. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in ancient Greek history - it does not disappoint.