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Barry B. Powell

Homer and the Origin of the Greek Alphabet Reprint Edition

by Barry B. Powell (Author)

4.9 11 ratings

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What caused the invention of the Greek alphabet? Who did it, and why? The purpose of this challenging book is to inquire systematically into the historical causes that underlay the radical shift from earlier and less efficient writing systems to the use of alphabetic writing. The author declares his conclusion to be a possibly surprising one--that a single man, perhaps from the island of Euboea, invented the Greek alphabet specifically in order to record the Iliad and the Odyssey of Homer.

ISBN-10

052158907X
ISBN-13

978-0521589079
Edition

Reprint
Publisher

Cambridge University Press
Publication date

October 28, 1996
Language

English
Dimensions

6 x 0.77 x 9 inches
Print length

308 pages
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Editorial Reviews

Review

' … this is a book which is as remarkable for the ingenuity of its answers to difficult questions as it is for its useful review and compelling display of so much of the relevant evidence.' Bryn Mawr Classical Review

'[This] is an important book, and will be widely read by students of writing in other cultures as well as by Homerists, linguists, historians and archaeologists of early Greece.' Classical Philology

Book Description

A challenging and fascinating enquiry into the genesis of alphabetic writing.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Cambridge University Press; Reprint edition (October 28, 1996)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 308 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 052158907X
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0521589079
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.01 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.77 x 9 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #560,845 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #157 in Ancient History (Books)
- #204 in Linguistics (Books)
- #442 in Alphabet Reference

Customer Reviews:
4.9 11 ratings

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Barry B. Powell

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Barry B. Powell was born in Sacramento, CA, in 1942. He studied at Berkeley and Harvard and taught for 34 years at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he is Bascom-Halls Professor of Classics Emeritus. He is celebrated for his argument tying the creation of the Greek alphabet to the recording of the Homeric Poems, but is also well known for his textbooks on Greek myth and Greek history and his work on the history of writing. He has published translations of the ILIAD, the ODYSSEY, the AENEID, and the poems of HESIOD. He has published original poetry, many fictional works, including an academic mystery A LAND OF SLAVES, a memoir RAMSES REBORN, and the illustrated TALES OF THE TROJAN WAR.

Customer reviews

4.9 out of 5

11 global ratings

5 star		94%
4 star 0% (0%)		0%
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Elefthera

Greater than Any Other Invention - the Phonetic Alphabet

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 5, 2018

Verified Purchase

Everyone in the world should read this book. We speak of the Internet so often and how it has changed everything so quickly … and supposedly there's never been anything that created such change so quickly and opened so many possibilities. But think of the alphabet - not writing - the alphabet. It made everything else possible. With the alphabet, we could create stories and written art that lived on. We could write history. And we could write poetry. The invention of the alphabet gave us culture and civilization.

One person found this helpful

Helpful

Molly Johnson

How one man invents the most important technology ever

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 15, 2013

Verified Purchase

This book is a carefully thought out, scholarly presentation uniting a large sum of indirect but consistent evidence into one compelling theory about the origin of our alphabet. The author clearly indicates which conclusions are speculative, which more certain, but he is always persuasive and often fascinating. At the end, he even NAMES the inventor! A highly specialized work that may not be appreciated fully by more casual readers. Also of interest: The Muse Learns to Write by Havelock.

5 people found this helpful

Helpful

Kindle Customer

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 10, 2017

Verified Purchase

accurate investigation into the origin of the alphabet we use every day. top flight scholarship.

One person found this helpful

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Driftwin Books

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on May 24, 2017

Verified Purchase

A fantastic look at the Greek Alphabet and how we got it.

One person found this helpful

Helpful

Ryan Mease

Review of Powell's Homer and the Origin of the Greek Alphabet

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 3, 2014

I have to second the sentiment offered in another review here that the conclusions of the book appear very rapidly, suddenly and without clear evidence toward the end of the author's careful history on the development of Greek writing. The book begins at a great pace that introduces the reader to key concepts in linguistics necessary for understanding the author's thesis, but the historical evidence is nowhere clear tied to the conclusion that Homer had a hand in regulating the rise of the new standard in Greek written text.

7 people found this helpful

Helpful

Paul V Caetano

Interesting Discussion of Script Evolution

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 17, 2000

This book's thesis is that the Greek alphabet was adapted by a single person in order to record Homer. While the idea is interesting, the evidence certainly is not definitive. I found the author's arguments unconvincing and hard to follow. However, the book is a good resource for old inscriptions, including some sexually explicit grafitti. The book also provides a good history of the early Greek alphabet and the the Cypriot syllabary.

18 people found this helpful

Helpful

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