Review by Choice Review
It is rare that a book lives up to its back cover blurb, but A Companion to the Hellenistic World does. As the blurb claims, its articles are "authoritative and exciting, its findings new as well as true." After being the orphan of ancient history for most of the 20th century, Hellenistic history has enjoyed a renaissance during the past two decades. Editor Erskine (National Univ. of Ireland) has assembled a distinguished group of contemporary historians to sum up the results of this new scholarship. The 29 essays are divided into seven sections. After an introduction on the sources of Hellenistic history, the authors deal with Hellenistic political and military history, major kingdoms, institutional and historiographic change and continuity, Greeks and non-Greeks, society and economy, Hellenistic religion, and arts and sciences. The essays are good and accessible. Indeed, the only problem is what is missing: similar surveys of recent scholarship on the principal peoples encountered by the Greeks and Macedonians, such as the Egyptians and Babylonians. As the first volume to appear in the "Blackwell Companions to the Ancient World" series, this fine work augurs well for its success. ^BSumming Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above. S. M. Burstein California State University, Los Angeles
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
