Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0140449086, Paperback)

Translated by Aubrey de Sélincourt with an introduction and Notes by John M. Marincola.

Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0192126091, Hardcover)

"The father of history," as Cicero called him, and a writer possessed of remarkable narrative gifts, enormous scope, and considerable charm, Herodotus has always been beloved by readers well-versed in the classics. Recently, the critical and popular acclaim for The English Patient, whose hero makes The Histories his constant companion, has attracted a new, and wider, audience.
Compelled by his desire to "prevent the traces of human events from being erased by time," Herotodus recounts the incidents leading up to the Persian Wars and the Greeks' stunning victory over the more powerful invading Persian forces. But Herotodus gives us much more than military history. By employing multiple points of view and incorporating the diverse stories he collected during his extensive travels, Herotodus provides the fullest portrait of the classical world of the 5th and 6th centuries. And because he writes in a style highly susceptible to digression, his book includes all manner of marvelous observations--from ants the size of dogs in India, to people who live in caves and chirp like bats in Libya, to flying snakes in Egypt. Most importantly, throughout The Histories Herotodus shows us the ruin that comes to those who overreach their natural boundaries, who fail to heed sensible warnings or act without understanding the web of reciprocity that connects all things.
This superbly readable new translation, along with an illuminating introduction, provides readers all they need to appreciate Herodotus' enduring appeal.

Amazon.com (ISBN 0226327728, Paperback)

Herodotus of Halicarnassus was born about 484 B.C. and died some 60 years later. He traveled over much of the known ancient world, making trips to places such as southern Italy, lower Egypt, and the Caucasus. His great History, the first major prose work in world literature, is an account of his world at the time of the Persian Wars. The book, here ably translated by University of Chicago scholar David Grene, earned Herodotus the epithet "The Father of History" in ancient times. He distinguishes between the things seen with his own eyes and those of which he had only heard. But he was often too credulous of things told to him by his peers along the way, for which reason his younger contemporary Thucydides called him "The Father of Lies." Renowned in his own time for his humanity and wide-ranging curiosity, Herodotus shows an insatiable appetite for both useful information and a good yarn, and The History is a starting point for any student of the past.

Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0375421092, Hardcover)

From the editor of the widely praised The Landmark Thucydides, a new Landmark Edition of The Histories by Herodotus, the greatest classical work of history ever written.

Herodotus was a Greek historian living in Ionia during the fifth century BCE. He traveled extensively through the lands of the Mediterranean and the Black Sea and collected stories, and then recounted his experiences with the varied people and cultures he encountered. Cicero called him “the father of history,” and his only work, The Histories, is considered the first true piece of historical writing in Western literature. With lucid prose that harks back to the time of oral tradition, Herodotus set a standard for narrative nonfiction that continues to this day.

In The Histories, Herodotus chronicles the rise of the Persian Empire and its dramatic war with the Greek city-states. Within that story he includes rich veins of anthropology, ethnography, geology, and geography, pioneering these fields of study, and explores such universal themes as the nature of freedom, the role of religion, the human costs of war, and the dangers of absolute power.

Ten years in the making, The Landmark Herodotus gives us a new, dazzling translation by Andrea L. Purvis that makes this remarkable work of literature more accessible than ever before. Illustrated, annotated, and filled with maps, this edition also includes an introduction by Rosalind Thomas and twenty-one appendices written by scholars at the top of their fields, covering such topics as Athenian government, Egypt, Scythia, Persian arms and tactics, the Spartan state, oracles, religion, tyranny, and women.

Like The Landmark Thucydides before it, The Landmark Herodotus is destined to be the most readable and comprehensively useful edition of The Histories available.

Amazon.com (ISBN 0375400613, Hardcover)

Since the release of the film version of Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient, there has been renewed interest in the Histories of Herodotus--the book the dying patient treasures so much.

The writings of Herodotus are the ground zero of Western history. He lived during the fifth century B.C.E, and his Histories chronicle the events of the Persian Wars, which were within living memory when he wrote. He was the first writer to examine real, rather than mythical history, and although his work lacks the rigor of later histories, it has a breathtaking scope. Herodotus is a wonderful storyteller, and in recalling the wars with Persian invaders, he ranges across the ancient world, mixing politics with natural history and anthropology. These are traveler's tales, and a great deal of their appeal to a modern audience lies in the way Herodotus describes the cultures that influence his story. The societies of Scythians, Arabs, and Egyptians are depicted in detail, from their political structures to their dining habits. Herodotus created a sense of history for his people, and he gives us a picture of a distant past that reminds us of the vast continuum of civilization.