Review by Choice Review
Having at last exhausted the Roman and early Christian veins, Grant is now busily quarrying Greece. From the Hellenistic period (From Alexander to Cleopatra, CH, Apr'83), where contact with Rome was closest, Grant moved back to archaic times with The Rise of the Greeks (CH, Nov'88), and now completes his historical trilogy with The Classical Greeks. Grant is, as always, good with coins; his other research is reasonably up to date. The book's structure remains topical rather than diachronic, but this time the work focuses on great men. Grant lists 37 makers and shakers, from public life and the arts, and from all over the Greek world (Athens, despite disclaimers, inevitably predominates). Fact-packed but dull in exposition, wide-ranging but liable to produce chronological confusion, this book seems designed more for the casual general reader than for undergraduates (who it will muddle) or graduate students (who will already have moved far beyond it). The bibliography excludes foreign-language titles. -P. M. Green, University of Texas at Austin
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
This book completes a trilogy that includes the previously published From Alexander to Cleopatra [BKL F 15 83] and The Rise of the Greeks [BKL My 15 88]. Grant's focus here is on famous and important personages of classical Greece and, by extension, on the history--and the civilization--they were largely responsible for making. His choice of subjects is appropriately comprehensive, including as it does playwrights and philosophers, generals and politicians, sculptors and poets. Among the 37 names that appear are Pericles, Herodotus, Plato, Lysander, Xenophon, and Aristophanes. From this list alone it should be obvious that great men were never in short supply in classical Greece, and explaining the foundation and nature of their greatness is just as obviously a task that Grant relishes. An eminently readable and informative book sure to give equal pleasure to all scholars and amateur historians of ancient Greece. References, notes, bibliography; index. --Steve Weingartner
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Grant blows the dust off our time-worn images of the classical Greeks. He comments on the playwright Euripides: ``His characters have become all too familiar to modern psychologists.'' And on Herodotus: ``Viewed as a writer, not as a historian, he is nothing short of a genius.'' This is no ordinary chronicle. Grant avoids overemphasis on the Greek mainland (and on Athens in particular), giving us instead the cultural contributions of a medley of city-states in the Greek empire. Then too, he believes that the Greeks' major achievements ``were mainly the work of less than 40 outstanding men.'' Some of these are readily familiar--Socrates, Aristophanes, etc.--others less so, like Archytas of Taras, who combined in one person the roles of general, political leader, mathematician, Pythagorean philosopher and student of acoustics. This wonderfully readable history falls chronologically between Grant's The Rise of the Greeks and From Alexander to Cleopatra. Illustrated. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Kirkus Book Review
The brilliance and glory of Greek civilization from the early fifth century B.C. to the rise of Alexander the Great--all masterfully illustrated here by renowned historian Grant through miniature biographies of leading figures, including Themistocles, Aeschylus, Pericles, Socrates, Aristotle, and Plato. The ideals and philosophies that constitute much of the heritage of Western civilization were incubated in the strife-torn Greek city-states during a remarkably brief period of time. Grant argues that it is best to interpret the history of fifth-century Greece ""by accepting that its outstanding deeds and thoughts were produced not by communities but by individuals."" After all, Grant's use of biographical sketches is itself a technique drawn from antiquity, e.g., Plutarch's Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans. This period saw the defeat of the Persians, the disastrous Peloponnesian Wars, the building of the Parthenon, the trial of Socrates, the founding of the Academy, etc. The reader meets the ""Father of History,"" Herodotus; the creator of tragedy, Aeschylus; and the founder of medical science, Hippocrates. The volume also includes numerous maps and illustrations of Greek art and architecture. Once again, Grant provides a superb popular history--in this case, an introductory study intended as part of a trilogy that includes The Rise of the Greeks (1988) and From Alexander to Cleopatra (1982). Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
Review by Booklist Review
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Review by Kirkus Book Review
