Type of bind: Paperback
Format: Bargain Price
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 256
Printing Date: June 30, 1950
Sale Popularity Level: 987481
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The Greeks were extraordinary not least because they evolved 'a totally new conception of what human life was for'. Elaborating on that claim, the author explores the life, culture and history of classical Greece.
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I have always wanted to know what type of social organization produced the great early Greek thinkers like Plato, Aristotle, etc. This book answers that question. It describes the Greek polis, key to early Greek civilization, and also the role that the environment played among other factors.
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A good intro to the world of the greeks. It's a little bit hard to understand but it does give helpful comments about The Histories of Herodotus and Homer's Illiad.
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I got in touch with this book as a mandatory reading when I was applying to study at Buenos Aires University. As usually happens with prescribed readings, I eyed "The Greeks" with little enthusiasm.
But to my big surprise it was a great read! Professor Kitto has done an outstanding work here. Now, after all this years, I treasure this volume in my library and read it again and again.
In very few pages he gives the reader a complete picture of Ancient Greece, from its origins till the advent of Alexander the Great.
Every main issue is described here: the Polis, their religion, the construction step by step of a unique civilization; art and war; literature and theater; philosophy and history; not a significant issue is left over. At the same time Professor Kitto succeed in writing a very straightforward account and an easy reading.
We may understand thru this book our eternal debt to that Mediterranean people. Nothing will be as it is without the Greek heritage.
A recommended read for students and any person interested in Western Culture.
Enjoy this trip!
Reviewed by Max Yofre.
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This book is really great. It briefly covers the formation of Greek civilization, it more thoroughly covers what is called "classical Greece" (the best part), and it ends by considering various other areas--myth and religion, the decline of the polis (city-state), the life and character and mind of the Greeks, and a tiny bit of philosophy.
The writing style of Kitto is outstanding; I bet he was a great teacher. It was a real joy to read this book, and I might read it again some day just to "hear" Kitto tell the story once more. Here are the opening lines (to give you a taste of his style): " The reader is asked, for the moment, to accept this as a reasonable statement of fact, that in a part of the world that had for centuries been civilized, and quite highly civilized, there gradually emerged a people, not very numerous, not very powerful, not very well organized, who had a totally new conception of what human life was for, and showed for the very first time what the human mind was for."
Kitto mentions a few Greek writers in the course of the book (Homer, Herodotus, Xenophon etc.), and it will really make you want to read them. I am a philosophy student, and I feel like I have a better understanding of the background of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle after having read this book. It isn't, however, an exhaustive study on the Greeks; that is not what it is intended to be. Anyway, it's great. There's no reason not to buy this and read it; it's a quick read.
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Kitto has done a nice job with this book. It is an extremely well researched overview of ancient Greek history and culture. Quite scholarly, and written in an interesting way, he leads the reader through his research and thinking, not always giving definitive answers to cultural questions. In the end the reader comes to fairly confident assumptions of what the Greek world was, and is, like. His very first chapters are quite good: Introduction, Formation of the Greek People, The Country, Homer, The Polis. The later chapters are less engaging, but overall a good scholarly read!
Reviewed by David Lundberg, author of Olympic Wandering: Time Travel Through Greece
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