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Title: The Landmark Herodotus: The Histories
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Manufacturer: Pantheon
List Price: $45.00
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| The Landmark Herodotus: The Histories by Pantheon Save your money. Better and Cheaper Herodotus editions available | Let me start out by saying that, in theory, a "Landmark Herodotus" has much prmise as and idea. But not in the execution of this volume, I'm afraid.
The model that worked so well for the Landmark Thucydides -- text with maps and appendices to explain larger themes and issues -- does not work so well for Herodotus.
While the maps are a welcome adornment, what this culumes lacks are specific and copius textual notes to explain the material. Instead we are shunted to various appendices at the end that are all done by fine scholars, but are not directly tied back to the actual textual material.
Instead of purchasing this hardcover volume, I highly recommend the much cheaper Oxford Classics paperback edition of Herodutus. It is an excellent English language translation with dozens of pages of highly specific endnotes elucidating the material.
Herodotus is a wide ranging, expansive read in contrast to Thucyudides, who is only covering a condensed period of history spanning some 20-30 years at its core, and is limited in its geographic scale to mostly Greece, Asia Minor and the Agean. [The notable exception being the great chapter on the Athenian expedition to attack Syracuse in Sicily].
If you must purchase this volume, I suggest waiting for the paperback volume to come out. The translation is a classic one, so it has merit from that standpoint. But the format that worked seemlessly for Thucydides, is lacking for Herodotus. With the wealth of material covered by the father of History -- a few appendices cannot do the work justice. You want to be able to follow along as you read the tales, and have the option of checking a source or an explanatory note if a subject strikes your imagination.
In many ways the experience of this volume is like reading a modern tourist guidebook for a country with all of the accomodations reviews for each city in one appendix, and all the restaurant reviews in another appendix.
| | The Landmark Herodotus: The Histories by Pantheon Wonderful classic historical read | There are certain classic texts that every serious student of history should own. However, the last thing you would ever probably want to do with some is take them off your shelf and read them. The archaic language, the stultifying syntax, and the obscure references make these works all but impenetrable to even the most educated mind.
This is decidedly not the case with this beautiful new edition of the works of Herodotus with a new, readable and understandable translation. Herodotus, commonly known as the father of history, traces in his Histories the growth of the Persian Empire, its invasion of the city-states of Greece, and their ultimate repulsion by the barely united Greek forces. Instead of a dry recitation of facts, we get an exciting story of abductions, betrayals, exhilarating battles and incredible feats of bravery that would make a soap opera enthusiast proud. But this is not a comic book version of a classic work. It is in fact a highly accessible translation that is a must for all scholars of ancient cultures, but also a valuable resource for all us dilettantes.
Robert B. Strassler, the editor, has done a yeoman's job in publishing this work for a large audience. It begins with a lengthy introduction that gives us background on the widely traveled Herodotus, describes his work and puts in into context. In addition, the volume is full of drawings, photos, innumerable maps and side notes that add considerably to our understanding. If that wasn't enough, it concludes with twenty-one appendices on critical topics by leading classical scholars, as well as a comprehensive index.
Herodotus was more than just a historian for he frequently writes about the culture, geography, religions and legends of the people and areas he describes. These in-depth descriptions add fullness and dimension to our understanding of these events.
With the publication of The Landmark Herodotus, we have a valuable and usable addition to the library of classic histories. Therefore, it will do a lot more than merely look good on your bookshelf.
Armchair Interviews says: Excellent readable book of ancient history. | | The Landmark Herodotus: The Histories by Pantheon Is Your Figure Less Than Greek? | Excuse the old song, but I could not help but to use it for this splendid book. Let me start by the quality of the production and material. The paper is of high quality, especially important in a book of this size. There is but little bleed from the reverse of each page. The paper is smooth and displays the fonts crisply. The binding is superb. You may lay it open nearly at any page and it splays for your waiting eyes.
All the old cob webs are swept away by this clean prose. Yet there is no edgy try at the avant-guard or hyper-modern. Something of a voice manages to come through, but never in a self-conscious manner. We hear the stories with their deep meanings, but not troubling over the facticity of any moment.
The Histories are laid bare without attempt to count the number of ships or match events to dates. Strassler eases you into the panorama of this great work to read and to see it on its own terms. The great assistance of the format: the maps, the notes and the gloss -- all make this work accessible as it has never been.
Only because I had a highly skilled Classics professor, and he an expert in comparative Ancient Greek, was I able to have a tour through this work at a tender age. Now you can have quite a bit in your reading chair.
You will be captive as the text reveals Solon at the palace of Croesus. How the great law giver and traveler lays out his argument that no one can be judged as while alive. And you will pause. You are reading this tome, not so much as one wanting the history, but as one who seeks the paideia, the Greek way.
The page layout has everything you can ask for; and then are all the appendices. Just enough photographs. | | The Landmark Herodotus: The Histories by Pantheon Can you say WOW! | I have been working through The Well-Educated Mind by Susan Wise-Bauer, and I have been dreading this big volume of Herodotus. I stumbled upon this edition in the library, and what a great find! It has maps,explanatory footnotes, summaries of each paragraph along the margins, pictures of archaelogical sights, and more! The translation is wonderfully readable too.
I heartily recommend this version! | | The Landmark Herodotus: The Histories by Pantheon Another Excellent Landmark Edition | Like the Landmark Thucydides, the Landmark Herodotus is an excellent edition, with a good introduction, copious notes, 127 maps, 21 appendices, a glossary, bibliography, dated timeline, and index. Being a huge fan of the Thucydides edition, I was hoping for a Landmark Herodotus, and am overall very impressed with the book. The only criticism I have is in the translation. The Thucydides edition used Richard Crawley's fine and well established translation, but a new translation by Andrea Purvis was used for Herodotus. Hers is not a bad translation, in fact I think it is probably very true to the original Greek, but it is simply not as elegantly done as George Rawlinson's The Histories (Everyman's Library). For example, here is how Purvis translated the Proem:
Herodotus of Halicarassus here presents his research so that human events do not fade with time. May the great and wonderful deeds - some brought forth by the Hellenes, others by the barbarians - not go unsung; as well as the causes that led them to make war on each other.
And Rawlinson's rendition of the same:
These are the researches of Herodotus of Halicarnassus, which he publishes, in the hope of thereby preserving from decay the remembrance of what men have done, and of preventing the great and wonderful actions of the Greeks and the Barbarians from losing their due meed of glory; and withal to put on record what were their grounds of feud.
Readers unfamiliar with other translations will probably not miss anything, but I must admit I found the translation a bit hard going at times. I would personally prefer a slightly less literal and more literary translation than a precise modern version that reads a bit tediously in places. But overall, this is a wonderful edition. Hope we get more Landmark editions, as Strassler seems to hint in his preface. | | The Landmark Herodotus: The Histories by Pantheon 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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