Product Description

Sumptuously illustrated in colour and packed with fascinating information, The Cambridge Illustrated History of Ancient Greece is now available for the first time in a revised paperback edition. Offering fresh interpretations of classical Greek culture, the book devotes as much attention to social, economic, sexual and intellectual aspects as to politics and war. Paul Cartledge and his team ask what it was like for an ordinary person to partake in ‘the glory that was Greece’. They examine the influences of the environment and economy; the effect of interstate tensions; the implications of sexuality; the experience of workers, soldiers, slaves, peasants and women; and the roles of myth and religion, art and culture, and science and education. This is a cultural history which reveals the far-reaching linguistic, literary, artistic and political legacy of ancient Greece, and seeks justification for Shelley’s claim that ‘we are all Greeks’.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #280658 in Books
• Published on: 2002-11-14
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 400 pages

Review
‘We can throw our hats in the air in welcoming this excellent addition to an already excellent series … Sumptuously illustrated and superbly informative illustrations and pictures surround the text on every page … As an introduction for the sophisticated adult reader and a powerful stimulus for the classicist, it is hard to see how this book could be bettered. At the price, it is a terrific bargain.’ Peter Jones, The Sunday Telegraph

‘This is a beautifully produced book, well worth its price. It succeeds in giving a well-rounded - indeed a holistic (in the tradition of Moses Finley) - introduction to ancient Greece and its culture.’ Philip Warnock, The Times Higher Education Supplement

‘Paul Cartledge has signed up a world-class team, who all appreciate that the visual material, both ancient and modern, must be integral to their subject, like the fruit in a cake, and not mere decoration.’ Oliver Taplin

‘… an unconventional, multifaceted, post-modern … contemporary and clear-sighted history of Classical Greece …’. Kathimerini

‘A fine achievement … no one reading this book will fail to appreciate the complexity of ancient Greece as a society, a competitive, high-achieving, innovative world, based on exploitation and cruelty.’ History Today

‘The Cambridge Illustrated History of Ancient Greece edited by Paul Cartledge, written by Paul and eight other world-class experts, considers ancient Greece in its widest context. It deals not only with politics and war, but with the environment, with people (men, women, children, slaves), with work and play, with performance and the visual arts, with philosophy and religion. The plentiful and relevant illustrations, fully and informatively captioned, bring each subject to vivid life, richly enhancing the reader’s understanding of life in ancient Greece.’ Classical Association News

A beautiful addition to the Cambridge Illustrated History series. Peter Krentz, Religious Studies Review

‘This is an original and insightful work. Its authors have lucidly synthesized the results of a generation of creative scolarship, and restored the voices of many groups that were often left out of more traditional Greek histories.’ Stanley Burnstein, The International History Review

‘The book is a first-rate lesson in how to illustrate a publication well … This is a superb and enormously useful volume. At every turn, you find clarity about the whole picture mixed with fascinating detail, and the thematic approach works.’ JACT

'This well illustrated glossy reference book will not only answer your questions as to what happened when and where and who the main players were in Ancient Greece, but also give an insight to the lives of the ordinary people …' Greek-o-File

‘Whatever, in fact, is modern in our life we owe to the Greeks. Whatever is an anachronism is due to medievalism.’ Oscar Wilde

About the Author
Paul Cartledge is Reader in Greek History, and Fellow and Director of Studies at Clare College, University of Cambridge.

Customer Reviews

IN GENERAL A WELL INFORMED AND USEFUL BOOK
Mr Cartledge's edition is a well formed book about 'ancient' Greece. The book has certain attractive features:

1) it is treating all historical aspects, rather than a narrow collection of them; so it starts talking about the greek landscape and its importance, something not aknowledged by other accounts.

2) the chapters are written by well informed scholars which in most cases draw information from the sources, or they reach well thought conclusions.

3) although the book could be useful basically for the layman its standards are high and in most cases the truth (as given by ancient texts and archaeological evidence) is given.

However, I have found it inadequate in some points; for example:

1) in the last chapter Mr Cartledge says that searching for the 'missing' quark could hardly be considered the continuation of the greek scientific program. This view is simplistic: exactly this is what is going on; it is actually readily aknowledged by present day particle physicists, and books on these subjects often start with theories of Anaximander, Empedoles et cetera

2) it is obvious that you can say 'a 'is different from 'b' if you know well both 'a' and 'b'; yet Mr Cartledge informs us that ALTHOUGH LINEAR A is not understood SATISFACTORILY it does not transcribe GREEK ( logical phallacy).

3) In science we can not prove the truth of a theory; we use it as long as we can not find counterarguments, AND YET although all evidence (including the huge discovery of the Verghina royal tobes) indicates that the MACEDONIANS were another greek group like the IONIANS the DORIANS the THESSALIANS, that ALEXANDER NEED NO INTERPRETER when speaking with atheneans or other greeks, that ALEXANDER TRANFERRED IN ASIA THE GREEK CULTURE and not the `macedonian'(!!), Mr Cartledge thinks that PERHAPS the macedonians were hellenes, OFFERING NO SCIENTIFIC COUNTERARGUMENT (in fact for those who know, and Mr Cartledge knows, not, only the fact that the king of Macedonia WAS ADMITTED TO THE OLYMPIC games resolves every matter).

4) Finally the title of the book is misleading since Cycladitic civillization is also 'ancient' greece, Hellenistic times are also 'ancient' greece, but the book does not refer to them!

OVERALL, the book is good, but to me created mixed feelings since at many points I thought that Mr Catledge was trying to impose upon me, his narrow interpretation of the words, ancient greece, and greeks. Being a greek myself I WELCOME every scientifically based argument found in this book BUT I refuse to follow personal 'beliefs'.

WITH THESE WARNINGS I would recommend this otherwise nice, complete and attractive book to those who want to have a nonromantic but scientific view of ARCHAIC AND CLASSICAL GREECE.