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The Landmark Herodotus: The Histories |  | Author: Herodotus
Creators: Robert B. Strassler, Andrea L. Purvis, Rosalind Thomas
Publisher: Pantheon
Category: Book
List Price: $45.00
Buy Used: $18.00
as of 7/3/2009 18:40 CDT details
You Save: $27.00 (60%)
New (39) Used (24) from $18.00
Seller: textbooksnow-
Rating:  reviews
Sales Rank: 20062
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 1024
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 3.6
Dimensions (in): 9.4 x 7.6 x 2.1
ISBN: 0375421092
Dewey Decimal Number: 930
EAN: 9780375421099
ASIN: 0375421092
Publication Date: November 6, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
From the editor of the widely praised The Landmark Thucydides, a new Landmark Edition of The Histories by Herodotus, the greatest classical work of history ever written.
Herodotus was a Greek historian living in Ionia during the fifth century BCE. He traveled extensively through the lands of the Mediterranean and the Black Sea and collected stories, and then recounted his experiences with the varied people and cultures he encountered. Cicero called him “the father of history,” and his only work, The Histories, is considered the first true piece of historical writing in Western literature. With lucid prose that harks back to the time of oral tradition, Herodotus set a standard for narrative nonfiction that continues to this day.
In The Histories, Herodotus chronicles the rise of the Persian Empire and its dramatic war with the Greek city-states. Within that story he includes rich veins of anthropology, ethnography, geology, and geography, pioneering these fields of study, and explores such universal themes as the nature of freedom, the role of religion, the human costs of war, and the dangers of absolute power.
Ten years in the making, The Landmark Herodotus gives us a new, dazzling translation by Andrea L. Purvis that makes this remarkable work of literature more accessible than ever before. Illustrated, annotated, and filled with maps, this edition also includes an introduction by Rosalind Thomas and twenty-one appendices written by scholars at the top of their fields, covering such topics as Athenian government, Egypt, Scythia, Persian arms and tactics, the Spartan state, oracles, religion, tyranny, and women.
Like The Landmark Thucydides before it, The Landmark Herodotus is destined to be the most readable and comprehensively useful edition of The Histories available.
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| Customer Reviews:
 Great edition of a classic... May 27, 2009
C. Crews (Cheyenne WY)
I'll make this short because I don't feel I can add anything significant that hasn't already been said. I've attempted Herodotus (and Thucydides) several times, but felt overwhelmed with the variety of locations, different tribes, interchangeable titles/names/terms/etc., and the (seemingly) endless digressions. This is an excellent volume for anyone who has tried to study Greek history without assistance. Strassler has made this classic coherent to novices (and dopes) like me. I've ordered his version of Thucydides' history and look forward to the same quality.
PS I would definitely recommend the hardcover edition--as a previous reviewer stated, I imagine the paperback version would quickly become tattered.
Superb, readable and infinitly FUN May 6, 2009
DELTA HEALTH WORKS INC (Cleveland, MS United States)
Fun. Herodotus was fun, entertaining, fascinating, wise, occasionally full of prunes, but he knew it and tells you. No one today can claim a better mind or more honest mind, and we are surely more often duped by our "media" than Herodotus was by the priests of Egypt and the storytellers of the places he visited. Anyone who likes to read fun and fascinating facts written 500 years before Jesus was born, needs this book more than visit their television sets or their golf clubs, especially if they like FUN. Herodotus is fun, and this wonderful edition with all the clearly labeled maps and footnotes correcting occasional mistakes is the ultimate edition. This book is a necessity, not a consumer option. Trust me.
Indispensible March 4, 2009
Chris Travers (Chelan, WA)
The Landmark Herodotus is an attempt to provide a translation of The Histories along with relevant background information in order to make the work accessible to an average reader. Herodotus, unfortunately, is sufficiently wide ranging that this is not reasonably possible. However, the attempt was worth it and this volume is indispensable as a reference to Herodotus's work.
So I will invert my normal format and start with what I don't like about the book. This sort of work really needs a companion volume following the text and providing additional commentary. Of course, at 840 pages of text and appendices (not including bibliography index, etc), there really isn't room for this information in this volume. However, if one could create a companion volume it might go a long ways towards filling the original goal.
As to what I like... The maps, photographs, etc are really helpful and make certain parts of the text much easier to understand than if they were not included. Furthermore the margin notes are extremely helpful in locating a passage quickly. The appendices were of decent quality and provided additional food or thought. The translation was also quite accessible.
On the whole, this is an excellent volume, and is well worth the cost. I would highly recommend this work.
 It no longer all Greek to me November 10, 2008
Randall L. Wilson (San Francisco)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Greek history is a big gap in my education. When I read a review of the "Landmark Herodotus" that talked about all the maps and annotations it contained, I thought this would be a good way to get up to speed.
I had some basic questions starting out; how were the Persian wars different from the Peloponnesian wars? Why should we still care about Greek history? I understand why we care about Greek culture but not so clear on the importance of the history. What did we really know about the Persian wars and how did we know it?
Reading Herodotus answered most of these questions and though his History isn't a primary text, it did give me insight into the thinking and the culture of that period. Much of what Herodotus wrote about was within a generation or two of his own times.
What stood out was the conflict between the forces of fate as represented by prophecies of oracles and the actions of men. While Herodotus saw men and women as capable of great deeds, they were often hampered or helped by prophecy.
Next, the long chronological context that he places the Persian war into. Its stretches back to the Egyptians and he is clearly fascinated by that culture and sees that while Persians conquered them, the Egyptians remained very influential on the Greeks.
Third, the multitude of tribes or people of the ancient world surprised me. The Greeks weren't just Greeks. They were Ionians, Athenians and Spartans and many more as well. The Persians conquered many people and this was a problem when they went into battle with people who didn't share a loyalty or connection and were a cause of the Persian's many defeats.
Finally, I was disappointed that the conflict between democracy and tyranny wasn't more delineated. I thought Herodotus would extol and explain the virtues of Athenian democracy but not so much.
The annotations were useful but weren't quite as illuminating as I had hoped. The pluses were the many maps and the timeline which I used after I finished a chapter to ground myself in the "who did what to who, when" that I'd lose track of as I read the text. The minuses included a poor glossary that could easily have been ten times as large and the appendices which were plentiful and written by eminent scholars on a wide range of subjects but they didn't give me a cohesive understanding of the whole of Herodotus' work. It was a bit like Sinatra's Duet albums where he and his singing partners never shared the same recording studio. Connection and engagement were missing.
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