Hellenic History

by Donald Kagan

Survey of hellenic history

Genres: History, Nonfiction

533 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1922

About the author

Donald Kagan (May 1, 1932 – August 6, 2021) was a Lithuanian-born American historian and classicist at Yale University specializing in ancient Greece. He formerly taught in the Department of History at Cornell University. Kagan was considered among the foremost American scholars of Greek history and is notable for his four-volume history of the Peloponnesian War.

Reviews

[Hector · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this book, you learn about the history of Ancient Greece. From the bronze age to the time Rome conquered Greece. I thought this book was pretty good because it will be useful in the history class I'm taking next year. The book gives a lot information about Ancient Greece and it has some mini biographies on some people like Alexander the great.

[Robert · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Actually been reading this since 1992. Thought it was time to finish it."

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

I pulled this book off my shelf, first read more than forty years ago for a class at San Diego State, as a way of better understanding Greece in preparation for travel there. Definitely a textbook, there were more than sufficient details, especially about political developments and the military battles that accompanied them. What jumped out was how Greek democracy was formed in part because of the relative geographic isolation of City-States like Athens and Sparta; that there were fragile and in flux, often reverting to autocracies; failed because of their inability to incorporate women and people outside of the City-State; and were unable to value social commits because of their increasing cultural individualisms. The book provided a very helpful introduction to what we would see of ancient site and the amazing museums in Greece, but also gave one pause to think about the present challenges of democratic commitments.

The extensive spread of Hellenism through Alexander the Great was another helpful story emphasized in the book. I was surprised by the extent of his an outsized influence on western culture, realizing how much his ideas are still very much with us — particularly his quest to realize that different peoples can share a common humanity and that much benefit comes to us when we pursue cross cultural practices.

[Meaghan Kelly · Rating 1 out of 5]

Read this because I'm trying to read every book I own. It was fine, I learned some things. Very traditional straight/white/male/top down history but I'm a big believer in learning from the people whose writing you don't want to model as well. This was mostly cool to help me get back in the mood for other Ancient Greek reading/TV shows/etc.

[Pablo Ramos · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excelente libro para comprender de manera detallada la historia de la antigua Grecia