Nancy Demand

I was poking around my shelves the other day, looking for my Rawlinson translation of Herodotus (not the version currently in vogue, I'm afraid), and what did I come upon, but my old copy of Nancy Demand's book on ancient Greece. This general history was the textbook used in the introductory class on ancient Greece that I took in college, a required course for all Classics majors.

It covers events from the early Neolithic cave settlement at the Franchthi Cave (ca. 18,000 BC), and the prehistoric background of Greece, to the achievements of Alexander the Great and the beginnings of the Hellenistic period (ca. 323 BC), in fifteen chapters. Needless to say, it is but an outline of this fascinating subject, and glosses over innumerable topics that scholars have devoted entire careers to investigating. But the student has to begin somewhere, and this is an admirable place to start...

Beginning with a discussion of geography (I can recall how Professor Helm used to emphasize the importance of geography in shaping history), Demand's book includes chapters devoted to: the Minoans, the Mycenaeans, the transition period from Bronze Age to Iron Age (the "Dark Age"), Archaic Greece, Sparta, Archaic Athens, Archaic Ionia, the Persian Wars, democratic and imperial Athens, the "Other" Greeks (women, metics, slaves), the Peloponnesian War, 4th-century Greece, Philip of Macedon, and Alexander the Great.

Coherently organized, and illustrated with numerous maps and diagrams, this history presents an excellent introduction to a complicated topic. I enjoyed reading it, and would recommend it to anyone who is commencing a course of study in Classics, or anyone with a general interest in ancient history.… (mer)