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The Discovery of Greek Civilization
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13639 |
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BOOK WORLD
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8 / 1988 |
3,233 Words |
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Charles D. Hamilton
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THE RISE OF THE GREEKS
Michael Grant
New York: Atheneum
391 pp., $27.50
The goddess Athena, in Greek mythology, sprang mature and fully formed from the head of her father, Zeus, but Greek civilization itself experienced no such dramatic birth. Rather, Classical Greece was the product of gradual evolution, in many different locations, over several centuries. With its roots in Mycenaean civilization of the Bronze Age, it developed through various invasions, migrations, and colonization movements and was stimulated by numerous influences from the ancient Near East. In the end, a unique, brilliantly creative civilization emerged. The burden of The Rise of the Greeks is to describe and discuss this development, and in particular its origins and early phases. Who were the Greeks? What did they achieve? And how did they accomplish their achievements? These are the questions this book asks. The author, Michael Grant, is probably today's most prolific interpreter of ancient civilizations, with literally dozens of books to his credit, including A History of Rome, The Etruscans, The History of Ancient Israel, The Army of the Caesars, The Roman Emperors, and similar works. Now he has done it again. Turning his attention to the Greeks, Grant brings to this volume vast learning, control of factual detail, and a vigorous style that has made so many of his works book club selections and standard college textbooks. Those who are familiar with his work will not be disappointed, and those who read him for the first time are in for a challenging and exciting odyssey across half a millennium and throughout a large portion of the ancient Mediterranean world, all in pursuit of "the Greeks."
In scope, the book covers more than six centuries, from the decline of the Mycenaean civilization in the late Bronze Age (c. 1200-1100 B.C.) to the confrontation, known as the Persian Wars, between the newly developed Greek civilization and the mighty Persian Empire, which occurred shortly after 500 B.C. Professional historians usually divide this period into two segments, the so-called Dark Age, from circa 1100 to circa 800, and the Archaic Age, circa 800-500. Grant admits the validity of the term dark to describe those centuries that are devoid of contemporary literary evidence and are known only from archaeological evidence and later myths and legends. He focuses his attention on the subsequent period, but he rejects the term archaic to describe it, reminding us that the dictionary defines archaic as "primitive" and "antiquated," adjectives that hardly do justice to the phenomenally creative achievements of the Greeks in so many areas of human endeavor during these centuries. It is perhaps worth noting that although the Greek root of the word archaic does have the meaning of "old" or "ancient," as in archaeology, it also connotes "beginnings." It is in this sense that it is used in textbooks of Greek history, to denote the "age of beginnings" in literature, philosophy, art, and architecture, including the political, social, and economic developments that followed the chaotic conditions of the Dark Age and preceded the most brilliantly creative period of Greek civilization, the fifth century. But let me not quibble; if the term archaic is ambiguous, the word rise of the title leaves no doubt about what the author wishes to convey. Such concern for clarity of terms is one of the hallmarks of Grant's success in translating knowledge of the ancient world into terms easily understood by the intelligent nonspecialist reader. Although it appears that the book is written
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