Product Description

The classical civilizations of Greece and Rome dominated the world for centuries and continue to intrigue and enlighten us with their inventions, whether philosophy, politics, theatre, athletics, celebrity, science or the pleasures of horse racing. Robin Lane FoxÂ’s spellbinding history spans almost a thousand years of change, from the foundation of the worldÂ’s first democracy in Athens to the Roman Republic and the Empire under Hadrian. Bringing great figures such as Homer, Socrates, Alexander, Julius Caesar, Augustus and the first Christian martyrs to life, exploring freedom, justice and luxury, this wonderfully exciting tour brings the turbulent histories of Greece and Rome together in a masterly study.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #7105 in Books
• Published on: 2006-07-06
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 752 pages

Review
The Classical World is a more epic epic than any toga-clad celluloid epic to dateÂ… Mr Lane Fox's brilliant book, where soldiers, poets and orators fight for attention in a story that is never cluttered and always stimulating. (The Economist )

witty, ferociously learned, enormously well read (Mary Beard, The Independent )

an ambitious and exhilarating volumeÂ…The Classical World is so replete with insight and anecdote that I would love to see it in every school library. (Stuart Kelly, Scotland on Sunday )

we are in the hands of an author who knows that an epic can only be driven by big characters such as Pericles, Demosthenes, Philip, Cicero, Pompey, Caesar and CleopatraÂ…Here lies the author's mastery, matching a lifelong familiarity with his subject to the basic needs of a newly arrived apprentice (Nigel Spivey, FT )

Mary Beard, The Independent
'witty, ferociously learned, enormously well read'

Stuart Kelly, Scotland on Sunday
'an ambitious and exhilirating volume...so replete with insight that I would love to see it in every school library'

Customer Reviews

Classical History - Short, Sweet, Elegant
This is an outstanding sweep across hundreds of years of Classical Greek and Roman history by a very fine scholar with a well-tuned popular touch.

Ranging from the poet Homer in the 7th century BCE, to the Roman 'First Citizen' Hadrian surveying his empire from the Tyne to the Euphrates, Lane Fox communicates a lifetime experience of teaching the Classics in one compact volume, deliciously divided into chapters which can capture an era or event in one pre-sleep bite! His view is even handed, but his enthusiasm for figures such as Pliny and Cicero shine out. He also has a soft spot for gardeners...

This is an excellent starting point for further reading, with excellent and easily usable notes and bibliographies. The illustrations are fascinatingly discussed in an appendix. I especially enjoyed the careful modern nuances that alluded to 'spin' and 'regime change' - these can be clumsy in lesser writers, but they were revealing and apposite here.

A very very fine book covering a vital aspect of human history, and essential to fully understand the Western World with all its achievements, weaknesses and cruelties.

Olympian in every sense
Robin Lane Fox, well known for his books on Alexander, has here produced one of the best overviews of classical Greek and Roman history, from the emergence of preclassical Greece to its second coming, so to speak, under Hadrian, that most philhellenic of Romans. Urbane but enthusiastic, revealing an immense learning very lightly, Lane Fox is unashamedly narrative in his approach. Essentially a Hellenist, he is perhaps unfair to some of the Romans - especially to the emperor Augustus whose achievements as a ruler surely atone for his lack of appeal as a man. Both Homer's world at the book's start, and that of the emperor Hadrian at the book's end, were aristocratic. Although Lane Fox treats the rise and fall of Athenian democracy very favourably, his general viewpoint is also elevated, unfashionably. He concentrates on political and military events, rather ignoring cultural factors. For Greece especially, this is an omission. But overall, while his Olympian narrative may not impress some specialists, it will probably still be read with fascination and appreciation long after more reductionist works have been forgotten. Lane Fox stands firmly and deservedly in the grand narrative tradition of Gibbon.

A real tour de force
If you've ever wanted to delve into Classical history but have always felt put off by the kind of high-brow, donnish aura that surrounds the subject, then this is the book for you.
I don't mean by this that the book is "dumbed-down", far from it; Lane Fox has written a gripping, accessible account of the great Greek and Roman civilisations upon which Western society still stands. He is an absolute master of sources and stories, and weaves them together into a cogent whole. This is a book not just about the princes, philosophers and Emperors but about the entire classical societies of Greece and Rome. It feels like you're there yourself.