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Greek Achievement - The Foundation of the Western World (99) by Freeman, Charles [Paperback (2000)] - Softcover
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A fresh, vivid, and thought-provoking introduction to the ancient civilization that helped shape our own and fascinates us anew today.
The immense success of Robert Fagles's translations of The Iliad and The Odyssey has demonstrated the resurgent appeal of the ancient Greeks. Combining the best of recent scholarship with a readable narrative, Charles Freeman's The Greek Achievement traces nearly two thousand years of history and culture--from the earliest settlements through the Classical, Hellenistic, and Roman periods to the splendors of Byzantium.
Like Thomas Cahill's The Gift of the Jews and How the Irish Saved Civilization, The Greek Achievement celebrates both the Greeks and their legacy to the world. It ranges from the tragedies of Aeschylus to the military adventures of Xenophon, from the conquests of Alexander the Great to the love songs of Sappho. It covers Aristotle and the roots of rhetoric; Plato's conception of The Republic, the first great piece of Utopian writing; philosophies such as Stoicism and Epicureanism; Euclid's contribution to mathematics; Galen's work in medicine; how Greek theater has colored dramatists from Shakespeare and the Elizabethans onward; the Greek influence on Christian theology and church structure; and much more.
The immense success of Robert Fagles's translations of The Iliad and The Odyssey has demonstrated the resurgent appeal of the ancient Greeks. Combining the best of recent scholarship with a readable narrative, Charles Freeman's The Greek Achievement traces nearly two thousand years of history and culture--from the earliest settlements through the Classical, Hellenistic, and Roman periods to the splendors of Byzantium.
Like Thomas Cahill's The Gift of the Jews and How the Irish Saved Civilization, The Greek Achievement celebrates both the Greeks and their legacy to the world. It ranges from the tragedies of Aeschylus to the military adventures of Xenophon, from the conquests of Alexander the Great to the love songs of Sappho. It covers Aristotle and the roots of rhetoric; Plato's conception of The Republic, the first great piece of Utopian writing; philosophies such as Stoicism and Epicureanism; Euclid's contribution to mathematics; Galen's work in medicine; how Greek theater has colored dramatists from Shakespeare and the Elizabethans onward; the Greek influence on Christian theology and church structure; and much more.
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Review:
The idea of an entity called Greece is a modern one, which a Thracian of Homer's time or an Athenian of the age of Pericles would not have recognized. Ancient Greek politics was organized along the lines first of family, then of clan, then of neighborhood, and then finally of town or city; the concept of nationhood, the existence of a nation called Greece, scarcely entered the discussion.
From the Back Cover:
But if there was no Greece in ancient times, there is more than one ancient Greece. One, writes the noted classical historian Charles Freeman, can be found symbolized in the Parthenon of Athens, its graceful architecture and statuary bespeaking ideals of freedom, citizenship, truth. But another, Freeman continues, can be found early in the pages of Thucydides, who writes of, among other atrocities, the Athenians' slaughtering the citizens of Melos upon their surrender after a long siege. "Whatever the achievements of the Greeks might have been," he writes, "they developed against the backdrop of a real world, one in which human beings were degraded by disease and where brutality was an everyday part of life."
Freeman traces both the real and the ideal Greek world in this comprehensive survey of ancient history, which opens with an up-to-date assessment of the Greek peninsula's Bronze Age cultures and closes with a view of the survival of classical customs and ways of thought in the Western tradition. Gracefully written, Freeman's fine history will find a welcome place on classicists' bookshelves. --Gregory McNamee
The achievements of the ancient Greeks form the cornerstone of modern Western civilization. Charles Freeman's The Greek Achievement traces the entire course of ancient Greek history across thousands of years -- from the Mycenaean and Minoan civilizations of the Bronze Age through the Archaic, Classical, Hellenistic, and Roman periods. This brilliant account celebrates the incredible range of Greek achievement: the architectural marvels of the Athenian Acropolis; the birth of drama and the timeless tragedies of Aeschylus, Euripides, and Sophocles; Homer's epics; the philosophical revolutions of Plato and Aristotle; and the conquests of Alexander the Great.
Lavishly illustrated with photographs and maps, The Greek Achievement paints a sweeping panorama of the ancient Greeks' world and provides a rich, contemporary overview of their enduring contribution to world civilization.
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- PublisherPenguin Paperbacks
- Publication date2000
- ISBN 10 0140271708
- ISBN 13 9780140271706
- BindingPaperback
- Number of pages1
- Rating
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