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A History of Greece, Volume 1 cover art

A History of Greece, Volume 1

Written by: Cyril Robinson
Narrated by: Charlton Griffin
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Publisher's Summary

A History of Greece is the thrilling story of the rise to power and influence of the greatest civilization the world has ever known. As Cyril Robinson's exquisite narrative unfolds, we find ourselves plunged into mankind's greatest and most magnificent adventure. The story begins in Minoan Crete, but quickly shifts to a dimly understood mainland culture. We follow the heroic deeds of the Mycenians and the Trojan War, the glorious artistic and intellectual triumphs of the Ionians, the turmoil of the Doric invasion and resultant dark age, the slow recovery culminating in the epic Persian wars and the renewed splendor of Periclean Athens. In the fifth century B.C., philosophy, literature, art, and architecture reach a pinnacle in Athens which no civilization has ever equaled. But civil strife soon follows and eventually embroils all of Greece.

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Greek history with extreme bias

I’m used to Greek history being presented from the perspective that the Greeks were superhuman in their development. This book goes beyond that. The author waxes on about the glorious greatness of the Greeks and their innate strengths and abilities. His references to their Arian roots, which he extols, leaves me very uncomfortable at this implied racial superiority. Furthermore, I’m listening to it as a refresher, having taken Greek history at university, and I can’t see that this would be an easy book to follow without maps and some prior understanding of the people involved. He moves quickly through names of people and places and, were I not already familiar with them, I don’t believe I would be able to follow his brief discussions of each. One minor thing that struck me was the author’s assumption, while describing the political developments on Sparta, that the reader have a familiarity with Roman political institutions, which he compares the Spartans too. Yes I also took a course in Roman history but I don’t think that should be a prerequisite for reading this book. Very dated, this work refers to modern places including Constantinople (which is of course now Istanbul) and is therefore not up to date on the last century of archeological discovery and scholarly debate. I am disappointed that this was all I could find on Audible to listen to as a refresher on Ancient Greek history. Two thirds of the way through and I’m not sure if I will bother to finish it. I have good books on the subject on my shelf and it is unfortunate that I can’t find audio versions of any of them.

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Great overview

This book was helpful in laying out the major events in Ancient Greece's history. The only difficulty was in trying to follow the names and places which are quite numerous. But it is quite good if you already have some familiarity with antiquity and are looking for a book to find the order and sequence of events. The author is certainly biased towards Athenian democracy but that's to be expected from authors of the period. Helpful!

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