Product Description

Aspects of Greek History, 750 - 323 BC is an up-to-date textbook on ancient Greek history that, topic- by-topic, uses a wealth of original sources to interpret this history for those with little prior knowledge of the subject. Chapter by chapter, the relevant historical periods from the age of colonisation to Alexander the Great are reconstructed. The book covers the main literary sources: Aristotle, Diodorus, Herodotus, Plutarch, Thucydides, and Xenophon; Greek political and military history from the beginnings to Alexander's Battle of Gaugamela. It includes maps, a glosary of Greek terms, and a full bibliography. Overall, this is an indispensable collection of material for the student of classics as well as the general reader, who requires a grounding in Greek history.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #774740 in Books
• Published on: 1996-06-18
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 560 pages

Review
Buckleys Aspects of Greek History bridges the gap between general histories that offer little in the way of source analysis, source books that offer too litle historical context for the non-specialist, and scholarly works that assume a greater familiarity with the language and cultural background than undergraduate students can be expressed to possess. The format of Buckleys work is highly organized, topically arranged narrative history interpersed with primary source material..

About the Author
Terry Buckley has recently retired from full-time teaching, having held the post of Head of Classics at Camden School for Girls and Roedean. He has also been for many years a member of the JACT Ancient History Committee.

Customer Reviews

Unfair Review
I think that the review posted for this book is exceedingly unfair. What Buckley tries to do is clear away some of the hypocrisy that has surrounded modern writing about ancient history. For generations books have been written by regurgitating the narratives of a few primary sources: Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, et al. Buckley puts this process in the foreground and allows teachers to amplify and to correct by appealing to inscriptions, coins, less "privileged" narratives and so forth. This is a dynamic text, which is really alone in a sea of pompous writers who aspire to the true account of what "actually happened" and don't want to let students in on the process. I fully intend to use this text in a course surveying Greek history. Everyone gets some details wrong, but I admire the basic honesty of this text.

An example of an uncritical and sloppy approach
To support the title, I'll take as an example only one chapter of Mr Buckley's book:The age of Greek Tyranny:c.650-510(page 47). First, the term "Age of Tyranny" as above is at least unfortunate.The author astounds everyone by such an unfounded allegation, since it is well known that tyrannies exist from their inception throughout Greek history. Second, at page 47 he defines a tyrant 'as someone who had seiged power unconstitutionally', thus implying that the cities where tyrants took over had pre-existing constitutions, which is untrue. Third, in his section "Feidon of Argos" at page 55 he alleges that "the Chalcidians were the best in pre-hoplite fighting", whereas it is well known that Chalkis' strength lay on its horsemen, as it is reported in the expedition of 508 BC in the topic of Cleisthenes and the war of the Athenians against the Spartan alliance. I only chose these three points to illustrate and state further that I would never have recommended this book to my A-level Ancient History students.