POLIS:INTRO TO ANCIENT GREEK CITY-STATE CULTURE PAPER: An Introduction to the Ancient Greek City-State

by Mogens Herman Hansen

From antiquity until the nineteenth century, there have been two types of state: macro-states, each dotted with a number of cities, and regions broken up into city-states, each consisting of an urban center and its hinterland. A region settled with interacting city-states constituted a city-state culture and Polis opens with a description of the concepts of city, state, city-state, and city-state culture, and a survey of the 37 city-state cultures so far identified.

Mogens Herman Hansen provides a thoroughly accessible introduction to the polis (plural: poleis), or ancient Greek city-state, which represents by far the largest of all city-state cultures. He addresses such topics as the emergence of the polis, its size and population, and its political organization, ranging from famous poleis such as Athens and Sparta through more than 1,000 known examples.

Genres: History, Ancient History, Nonfiction, Greece

245 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 2004

Reviews

[Panagiotis Gioxas]

Άλλο περίμενα να γράφει αλλά το απροσδόκητο είναι γεγονός ότι σου δίνει μια άλλη ματιά για το τι πίστευες ότι είναι πολη-κρατος.Το συστήνω ανεπιφύλακτα ως ένα ξεκίνημα για πολλές διαδρομές μέσα στην ιστορία...

[Taymaz Azimi]

Although it is a very informative book it does not have a new or bright idea or theory within. There are just loads of data but the writer is just a reporter not an 'author.' And finally it lacks a real conclusion!

[Maria Bank]

Since I am no expert this was a great introduction to an advanced study. Language was easy to follow.

[Sanjay Prabhakar]

Useful if fairly dry. Basic point is that 'city-state' really is a good translation of polis.

[Logan Streondj]

lots of great data on cities and city states around the world, focusing mostly on Greece.
started strong but ended up with like a jumble of loose ends. still worth archiving.

[Nicholas]

Although this volume is very informative, it is also rather disjointed and Hansen's style here is very dense. A fair amount of background knowledge about Greek history is assumed to be known to the reader, which means that it shouldn't really have been titled as an introduction in my opinion. If you read it as the first book you read on Greek history you will be left scratching your head and wondering what the heck is going on. If, on the other hand, you go into this with a good grasp of Greek history, then you will emerge with a much better understanding of why the history of the Greeks unfolded in the way it did and why the Greek city states worked the way they did.

[Jo]

Very disjointed, Hansen didn't really come to any conclusions just threw out information about ancient Greek city states. The parts where he compared the Greek city states to other historical examples of city states were especially weak.

[Richard Baker]

I found the introduction and conclusion that set the ancient Greek city-state in the context of the 37 known city-state cultures especially interesting.

[S. Kallahan]

Basic scholarly overview that's most useful for its bibliography.

[Ryan Patrick]

.