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Type of bind: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 938
EAN num: 9780500051122
ISBN number: 0500051127
Label: Thames & Hudson
Manufacturer: Thames & Hudson
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 224
Printing Date: 2002-12
Publishing house: Thames & Hudson
Sale Popularity Level: 640428
Studio: Thames & Hudson
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Product Description:
The ancient Greeks set out from their mountainous land at the end of the Balkan peninsula to colonize and settle almost all the Mediterranean and Black Sea coasts. These remarkable people have left their imprint on virtually every aspect of modern politics, theater, art, philosophy, medicine, architecture, and athletics.
Here is their story, told within its historical and cultural framework. The eastern Mediterranean has always been a point of contact and conflict between East and West, and the book relates how the Greeks interacted, both peaceably and otherwise, with the surrounding cultures—Minoans, Phoenicians, Lydians, Persians, and Romans. Herodotus began his account of the Persian Wars in the fifth century BC by saying that the trouble started 700 years earlier, with the events leading up to the Trojan War. Over time the struggle surged back and forth across the Aegean: Greece against Troy, Greek migration and settlement in Asia Minor, Persian invasions of Greece, Alexander's conquest of Asia, Roman intervention in the Greek world.
The world of the ancient Greeks is presented here in chronological order, from the Bronze Age to the Christian era, a span of some 3,500 years. Athens plays a large role, but other Greek cities are given much closer attention than in standard accounts. Individual chapters look at the Greeks and their gods, and Greek art and architecture. The result is a sweeping and authoritative survey of a culture that made an unparalleled contribution to the rise of Western civilization. 280 illustrations and phtotographs, 90 in color.
Key features:
• Spread-by-spread layout
• Quotations from Greek authors
• The latest archaeological discoveries
• Numerous sidebars and special features
• Timeline and gazetteer of ancient Greek sites
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Rated by buyers -
This book constitutes a superb visual tour of ancient Greece, beginning with the earliest artifacts and continuing through the Roman period. With abundant pictures, maps and drawings it is a feast. The text should not be slighted; it is up-to-date and highly informative, yet an entertaining and enjoyable read, and interposes many quotes from ancient sources to add depth. The book serves at once as a reminder or the glories of Greece, a reference for much of Greek culture, and a doorway to further inquiry. It is not an in-depth scholarly analysis, but a wonderful excursion through Greek culture that will lead you to greater understanding and a thirst for more. Finally, the book itself is a pleasure to see and hold. It will serve for many years as a reference and a place to browse through history.
Rated by buyers -
"The World of the Ancient Greeks" covers their history from the Paleolithic and Neolithic era, which is actually before the "Greeks" very first showed by circa 2000 B.C., to the fall of Constantinople in 1453, when Greece became part of the Ottoman Empire. With the fall of the Byzantine Empire and the beginning of 400 years of Turkish control, Greece was no longer Greece (not until 1821-32 and the Greek War of Independence). When I learned World History the basic idea was that the Greeks created Western Civilization and were then taken over by Alexander the Great's Macedonian Empire and then the Roman Empire. But John Camp and Elizabeth Fisher take a different perspective and focus more on how the eastern Mediterranean has always been a point of contact and conflict between the East and West. However, while they point to a series of struggles back and forth the Aegean Sea, from the Greek war against Troy and Greek migration and settlement in Asia Minor to Alexander's conquest of Asia and Greece becoming part of the Roman Empire, the focus of this book ends up being more on the prominent role of the Greeks in making an unparalleled contribution to the rise of Western civilization.
That simply means we end up on familiar ground for most of this book, although certainly the authors pay more attention to other Greek city-states besides Athens in describing the world of the ancient Greeks. The volume is divided into ten chapters: (I) Who Were the Greeks? not only defines them but also lays out the written sources and archaeological discoveries that are the foundation for what we know; (II) The First Greeks focuses mainly on the Early Bronze Age in Greece and the point where the Greeks, or more properly their language, pops up in history; (III) The Heroic Age is where we get to the Mycenaeans, the civilization on Crete, and the historical evidence that exists for all of the myths that spring from the late Bronze Age, such as the sieges of Troy and Thebes, and the quests of Odysseus and Jason.
A key transitional period is detailed in (IV) The Age of Expanding Horizons, which starts with the Dark Ages following the end of the palaces that defined the previous era, and the key elements of colonization, Panhellenism, and the beginnings of Greek literature. (V) Polis: The Early Greek City is concerned with such basics as urban design, political structure, economic life, and regional diversity. The important cities of the mainland (Sparta, Thebes, and Corinth) are contrasted with the Eastern (Samos, Ephesus) and Western (Selinus, Syracuse, Massalia). Then, of course, there is a whole chapter devoted to (VI) Classical Athens, which covers its rise, government and law, commerce and business, religious life, theater, intellectual life, and private life. True, you can devote an entire book like this to Athens, but what we have here is nice and concise, while still providing some key details.
Mythology is covered in (VII) Gods and Heroes, although the focus is more on festivals, cults and shrines, which is fine. There are plenty of books on mythology and Greek drama, and this is more on the culture than the literature. (VIII) Greek Art and Architecture does a nice job of laying out architectural orders, but the attention to sculpture is even better. Too bad that when I visited Greece all of the museums were closed in preparation for the Olympics, so that the only "key" piece I got to see was the Charioteer of Delphi (it is in the outer part of the museum), but this section made up for that somewhat by showing me again what we missed. Pottery and painting are covered as well, and you can just never see too many examples of Greek pottery.
(IX) Alexander and the Hellenistic World tries to establish a sense of continuity between the Greece personified by Athens and the Hellenistic World of Alexander's empire, but once you get to Asia it is just not Greece anymore. Since the Macedonians conquered Greece, that does not seem particularly Panhellenistic to me. So I see what happened with Alexander to be closer to what comes with the (X) Romans and Christians, this last chapter being the shortest of all because there are Greeks but Greece is no longer Greece at that point. I also see what Alexander did to be closer to what the Romans did with Greece, than I see him as the student of Aristotle. At the very least, Alexander's Empire gives us a more reasonable point in history to stop talking about the ancient Greeks, much more so than the rise of the Ottoman Empire (the Romans at least considered Greece to be Greece, but that was definitely not the case when it became part of the Turkish sphere of influence).
"The World of the Ancient Greeks" is illustrated with 376 photographs and drawings, of which 107 are in color, and since I have actually been to Greece it was nice that I instantly recognized places I had been, such as Delphi and Olympia (how can you not at least walk ... Read More
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