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Introduction books on Ancient Greece
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Message 1.Β
Posted by rich001 (U1949998) on Thursday, 22nd September 2005
Hi everyone, hope you are all ok.
Can anyone reccomend an introductory book on Ancient Greece?
Thanks. -
Message 2
Posted by Eusebius (U2100870) on Thursday, 22nd September 2005
Try "the rise of the Greeks" by Michael Grant. It was originally published in 1987 so in parts it is a bit dated but it gives a very good introduction to the history of the Greek city states. I found it very usefull as a background overview for my university undergraduate degree.
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Message 3
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Wednesday, 28th September 2005
i do not know the book,
If any book you read about greeks starts with titles like 'the rise of the greek city states' then ignore it since at least half of Greeks did not leave within city states but larger federal states and kingdoms. If it was all Athens and Sparta for some then they can nicely write a history about Athens and Sparta - if they want to start a history about Greeks then they will be lost in eras well before the 3000 BC and the mysterious Mynyans (not to be confused with Minoans in Crete) who were said to have drained the swampy areas that largely covered the largely different to today land of Greece. Of course, most will doubt that Minoans were Greeks lacking language proofs - but then they doubted the same about Myceneans ... at least try to chose a book that starts from around 2500 BC and the appearence of Arcadians .... if the book is consumed more than 50% to city states then it is crap. -
Message 4
Posted by Xenos5 (U1814603) on Wednesday, 28th September 2005
I recommend "the Greeks" by Kitto. An old'un but a good'un.
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Message 5
Posted by lolbeeble (U1662865) on Wednesday, 28th September 2005
Well there is Bury and Meiggs a Hstory Of Greece which is a good narrative. The Oxford History of the Classical World also has a number of useful chapters and the Cambridge Ancient History is always a good bet. Oswyn Murray's Early Greece is well reccomended at most online book stores but only takes you up to the end of the Persian wars although many of the issues highlighted continue to be relevent to fifth and fourth century Greek politics.
Paul Cartelidge has a volume on the Spartans that is now in paperback that is a good companion to any account of Greek history with its reliance on Athens' literary output. -
Message 6
Posted by Thjodolf (U1900675) on Tuesday, 4th October 2005
Peter Connolly's "Rome and Greece at War" is a great book for the military side of things. Hundreds of fantastic illustrations.
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Message 7
Posted by dwrmatt (U1984005) on Tuesday, 4th October 2005
Reading through Meiggs & Bury at the moment to refresh my Greek History before term starts - this is how Latin literature buffs have to prepare teaching undergrads
My question is: how up-to-date is the opening chapter on the Heroic age? Have there been any major developments since the revision I have (1978 I think)?
Cheers,
Matt -
Message 8
Posted by lolbeeble (U1662865) on Tuesday, 4th October 2005
Again I would reccomend Oswyn Murray Early Greece, 2nd edition (1993). Mind you I'm not sure either are quite so obsessed as Kitto was.
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Message 9
Posted by Hannibal (U2185798) on Thursday, 6th October 2005
A really good book is Christian Meier's 'Athens'. Covers the city from political, social, artistic, philosophical and military angles. Highly recommended, even if it is about a city-state and not farmers draining swamps somewhere.
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Message 10
Posted by lolbeeble (U1662865) on Thursday, 6th October 2005
It was a Dutch Venture Capitalist that drained our swamps. The farmers only brought plots to finance the whole affair.
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Message 11
Posted by Hannibal (U2185798) on Thursday, 6th October 2005
Excuse me? In Ancient Greece?
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Message 12
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Friday, 7th October 2005
Your comment Hannibal is ironic, I accept it considering also your deep ignorance of the Mynyans, but then this guy that started this thread asked on books about the Greeks and not a book a book about the Athenians... the Athenians were a 300,000 city (slaves included) on its heyday that rose to power between the 6th and the 4th century BC. If history of Greeks starts and ends there that suits only your average perception of reality. Greeks had to be more than 10,000,000 million in the ancient world, their largest populations being in Great Greece (South Italy) were their biggest city up to the 'th century was, that was Syracuse that reached more than half a million which of course had no difficulty in beating Athens (anytime). The most important state that defined Greek history (and the world) was not Athens but the Macedonian kingdom. Philosophy and science was born in Minor Asia, continued in Great Greece and only when Athens rose to power in mainland Greece it moved there (Athens remained a cultural center of the Greek world until the -th AD century when emperor Justinianus went on a witchhunting).
Now if this guy asks a book on Greeks then probably he wants a book that states the early history and the early greek history is not the greek city states (that is rather new...), nor the archaic years, not even the Mycenean kingdoms whose dates now have gine even further back in history... so yes we have to start from eras when those farmers Mynyans (of course that was only one thing they did be sure about that) that managed to drain swamps and lakes, and some claim, though there is no solid proof yet, they even managed to drain the salt-lake of Thessaly (cos its name is a name more suitable for a sea and not for landmass!).... or even earlier cos Crete is inhabited at least since 9,000 BC and yes it was an island at that time so it was not only farmers and drainage systems.
So is greek history starts and ends with one city? No, its only your own perception. -
Message 13
Posted by dwrmatt (U1984005) on Friday, 7th October 2005
10,000 million?
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Message 14
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Friday, 7th October 2005
i usually write fast and with a lot of mistakes (grammar, syntax, anything) but these are the most I make. I wrote the number plus the word so its a pleonasm. Moderate estimates of population of greeks in antiquity give a number of 10 million people in the 5th century but this number could be substantially bigger especially considering the fact that practically all the mediterranean was habitated by Greeks having quite large cities. Hence my argument that a book on Athens is a book on Athens not on Greeks as a whole, a book on city-states is a book on city-states not on Greeks as a whole.
Focusing in history is a big issue as historians tend to focus on one story and are not often in position to see the whole picture. That is not my fault. The first guy on this thread asked for a good book on Greeks, unfrotunately I remember now only Greek books and these are not good either since they keep chewing the well eaten chewing gums of the past.
I would suggest to the guy if he has time to read a book on minoan and mycenean civilisations, and one for archaic years and then he constructs his one picture... if more interested he should spent some time in the 'linear development' of Linear A Linear B Linear C (deliberately known as Cypriot) and then the so called 'disappearing' and the instant appearing of suspiciously similar in basic concept and shapes Phoenician alphabet in a place that wrote cuneiform for at least 4000 years and where accidentally there were also greek colonies.... - classical and hellenistic years are anyway pretty much known. -
Message 15
Posted by lolbeeble (U1662865) on Friday, 7th October 2005
Well there are a few useful chapters in The Oxford Illustrated History of prehistoric Europe edited by Barry Cunliffe, particularly 6, 8 and 10, that outline the archeaological evidence from 2000 BC to the adoption of writing.
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Message 16
Posted by dwrmatt (U1984005) on Friday, 7th October 2005
Sorry E_N if I may have come across a bit sarcastic, but during my lurking I've read a lot of your posts. They remind me of a long-running and good-natured debate I had with a Greek friend of mine about how far back Greek culture actually goes, the existence of PIE, etc...
He didn't convince me, but I certainly didn't convince him either!
All the best,
Matt
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