The Greek Achievement: 1550 BC to 600 Ad from Mycenea to the Byzantine Empire

by Charles Freeman

Book Overview

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,... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0670885150
• ISBN13: 9780670885152
• Release Date: August 1999
• Publisher: Viking Books
• Length: 576 Pages
• Weight: 1.99 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.7" x 6.4" x 9.3"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Brilliant overview

Perhaps the best feature of this extremely well written and lucid text is the ability to selectively read the thematically differentiated chapters. While I read the book from cover to cover and there is a general chronology to the text, the reader could easily jump from section to section based on personal interest. Academic writing that is not obtuse or overly theoretical is often hard to come by. As a previous writer stated, there is perhaps not much interpretation involved, but the overall structure of the text is truly remarkable and should take precedence to any criticism.

I'm not an expert but....

I knew nothing about ancient Greece before this book, but now I have a real non-idealistic picture of Ancient Greek life. Why? Because this book treats you like a laymen and not a scholar. You see it sucks you in by addressing more contemporary curiosities (like what's up the the man on boy love?) rather than seeming more like second period history class. I really enjoyed it, but like you I wanted to make sure I picked the right introduction into Ancient Greece. Yes the names, dates, and places are there; but mixed in a sea of interesting stories difficult not to enjoy. Only obvious flaw (due to the number of pages) is that the book is very thorough. But if you were getting married, wouldn't you want to know everything about your partner? That's how I feel about my Greek History! Enjoy

superb book - thorough, fair, intelligent, well written

I traveled to Greece recently, and have read over a dozen books, both recent & 'classic' histories, books about Greek culture, military, art, poetry etc. Freeman is in a class by himself. His book is the most thorough, well written and fascinating. I loved his attitude. He is almost unique in his honest and fair appraisal of ancient Greek culture, the good, the bad, all of it. That seems to have made some reviewers unhappy. I loved it. The discussion of 18 and 19th century European discovery of the ancient Greeks and how they santized things they couldn't respect was especially interesting - in itself, and because of our culture wars today. Much of classical over-idealization of ancient Greece (which tended to idealize itself, too!) grew out of the work of homosexual and antisemitic GErman scholars, and a British elite that admired the aristocratic, anti-democratic strands they could pull out of Greek culture - it's a very interesting piece of intellectual history. The Greeks were masters of beauty and thought, but they were moral midgets. That bothers some people. I loved being told the truth.

my first insight into greek culture and history

I'm 16 and before i read this book i had no knowledge of greek civilization other than the History channel. I really enjoyed this book, despite my ignorance of that time period. It was very educational while providiing interesting facts that made it seem less like a text book. It took me quite a while to finish it, but it was definitly worth it.

Great content and scope for its purpose!

At first, when I started reading this book, I thought I was going to be disappointed with its non-academic purpose. I've seen many works destined to the general reader which lack depth or are simply too plain on their approach. No footnotes, not even mention to the exact passages of ancient authors; I was prepared not to like it.Mr. Freeman's book surprised me. Most of all, his writing style flows with ease and is extremely enjoyable to read. I finished its almost 500 pages in three days... Unlike many books about ancient Greece, it has a good space for discussion of Roman influence on the Greek world (going further until the end of Antiquity), as well as up-to-date information on the new historiography trends of gender and approach to slavery. It also includes information from recent archaeology discoveries, and the discussions on Greek architecture and art are very interesting.On the whole, despite a couple of almost annoying repetitions of the same examples over the text, this book is a refreshing approach not only for the general reader, but also as a relief from some heavy, opinionated schorlarly texts on the same subject.