What do you think?
Rate this book
Grecii: O istorie globală
Cartea de față este povestea unei culture care a contribuit mai mult ca oricare alta la felul în care trăim azi în Occident. Este o poveste care ne poartă pe întregul glob și străbate aproape patru milenii de istorie, de la comorile arheologice ale spațiului egeean din Epoca Bronzului și miturile vechilor zei și eroi, până la politicile Uniunii Europene de astăzi. Suntem martori la gloria faimoaselor orașe-stat Atena și Sparta, la campaniile duse pe teritorii îndepărtate de Alexandru cel Mare, la începuturile creștinismului, la imperiul de o mie de ani al bizantinilor, la revirimentele valorilor clasice din epoca renascentistă și cea iluministă. Este o poveste a invențiilor și a descoperirilor – a alfabetului, a filosofiei și științelor – dar și a reinventărilor, căci grecii au știut să se adapteze schimbărilor, uneori catastrofale, și au redescoperit noi moduri de a supraviețui și de a-și pune amprenta pe lumea din jur, inclusiv astăzi, printr-o diasporă risipită pe cinci continente. Rezultat al unei vieți de asidue cercetări academice duse de unul dintre cei mai stimați experți ai domeniului, Grecii este povestea profund revelatoare, de dimensiuni epice, a destinului grecilor și „O monumentală, cuprinzătoare istorie a grecilor, a impactului lor global.
496 pages, Hardcover
First published October 26, 2021
307 people are currently reading
2972 people want to read
About the author
Roderick Beaton
41 books55 followersRoderick Macleod Beaton, FBA, FKC (born 1951) is a retired academic. He was Koraes Professor of Modern Greek and Byzantine History, Language and Literature at King's College London from 1988 to 2018.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 145 reviews
October 13, 2023
“This book asks: What can we learn from the accumulated experience of those who have spoken and written this language, during three and a half thousand years, about how identities are created, perpetuated, and modified or reinvented over time? We all rely on perceptions of the past to establish our own identity in the present. In a world ever more threatened by the clash of mutually exclusive, monolithic identities, we might all do well to reflect, on a more informed basis than we often do, on the ways in which these identities come to be formed and also adapted as the world around us changes. The story of the Greeks, based on their own words, that can be traced all the way back to the earliest period of recorded history, sheds light on this process rather than on any single identity, seemingly fixed and given at any one time…”
- Roderick Beaton, The Greeks: A Global History
The best part about history – for those of us who love studying it – is that there’s always something more to learn. History is like an Old Country Buffet that’s open, without fail, twenty-four hours a day and seven days a week. Better yet, while reading about the past can be shocking, saddening, and occasionally revolting, it will not – unlike eating at an Old Country Buffet – give you food poisoning.
The tough part about history is the same thing that makes it great. There’s just too much, and deciding what to read about next can be overwhelming. To that end, I’m always collecting books about people, places, and events that I want to get to, knowing that life is too short to get to it all. My bookshelves are groaning beneath the weight of good intentions, of aspirational volumes that I just haven’t gotten around to yet.
Greece is one of those subjects for which I’ve been long preparing. It feels like something I should know about – given that so much of Western Civilization springs from it – yet beyond some patchwork knowledge, Greece is overwhelmingly Greek to me. I have a whole pile of titles that I haven’t opened, mainly because I’m not sure of the best place to start.
Roderick Beaton’s The Greeks seemed like as good a place as any. So I picked it up in the spirit of curiosity and acknowledged ignorance.
It’s a good book. But alas, probably not a good place to begin one’s exploration of Greek history.
***
As the title implies – and as Beaton makes clear upfront – The Greeks is not about a place, but about people, specifically Greek-speakers around the world. This is worth noting for a couple reasons. First, because it’s untethered to a physical location, it sometimes wanders far afield, and you end up spending as much time with the Romans and Byzantines as anyone else. Second, Beaton has a lot of rather abstract notions he wants to discuss about civilization, culture, and identity, and he assumes you already know the conventional wisdom as he presents his counterpoints.
This is a book, in other words, that requires readers to have some background before starting, and there were moments when I struggled to keep up with Beaton as he chases down various tangents. It’s like stumbling into an advanced college course without completing the prerequisites.
***
That said, for a book directed at serious students of Greek history, Beaton makes The Greeks relatively accessible. Given that he’s trying to cover 3500 years in 466 pages of text, he is necessarily selective in his topics.
Each of the chapters – which helpfully tell you the time period that’s being covered – unfolds in an overarching chronology, taking us from the days of Homer to the days of Homer Simpson. Within that arc, however, the chapters are thematically oriented. This makes sense, as it’d be impossible to tell you everything that happened.
***
Though Beaton has a laudable academic pedigree, he doesn’t write like a professor. His literary style is engaging from the start. For instance, he begins The Greeks with a wonderful tour of the Eastern Mediterranean in the late Bronze Age, laying the foundation for the rest of the book.
Beaton has a special affinity for linguistics, and spends a lot of time on the Greek language. But my favorite parts of The Greeks occurred when he latches onto famous figures such as Alexander the Great, or takes on extended sequences, such as the Peloponnesian War. Especially good is his coverage of the Byzantine Empire.
The Greeks covers some complex and tangled eras, with empires rising, falling, fracturing, and reforming. The relationship between the ancient city-states, such as Sparta and Athens, was often fraught. One moment they’d be fighting each other; the next they’d be fighting the Persians; and a week later they’d be at each other’s throats again, and perhaps allying with the Persians for their own ends. As someone with only the most superficial understanding of these classical conflicts, I was impressed by Beaton’s ability to keep things clear.
***
The Greeks is heavily weighted in favor of the ancient, at the expense of the more recent. After two hundred pages, we’ve barely reached the common era. It takes about four hundred to reach the twentieth century, by which point the book is almost over.
A lot of what I’ve seen written about The Greeks remarks upon its purported comprehensiveness. But it’s not comprehensive. It doesn’t attempt it. Though the stuff that Beaton covers is covered well, there is an imbalance here that is a bit disappointing. I wanted a lot more on the Greek Revolution in the early nineteenth century, the Balkan Wars of the early twentieth century, and the current state of modern Greece. All those critical moments are rushed.
***
Beaton is a renowned expert on all things Greece. He has written a big, lucid book that draws on a dizzying array of sources. There were several sections where I totally connected to the material, and the pages flew. Ultimately, though, The Greeks does not really stand alone, but is a culmination of all the things that Beaton has thought and written about in his illustrious career. Thus, I feel like I missed out on the total experience. However good this is, I wish that I had waited a bit longer to read it.
- Roderick Beaton, The Greeks: A Global History
The best part about history – for those of us who love studying it – is that there’s always something more to learn. History is like an Old Country Buffet that’s open, without fail, twenty-four hours a day and seven days a week. Better yet, while reading about the past can be shocking, saddening, and occasionally revolting, it will not – unlike eating at an Old Country Buffet – give you food poisoning.
The tough part about history is the same thing that makes it great. There’s just too much, and deciding what to read about next can be overwhelming. To that end, I’m always collecting books about people, places, and events that I want to get to, knowing that life is too short to get to it all. My bookshelves are groaning beneath the weight of good intentions, of aspirational volumes that I just haven’t gotten around to yet.
Greece is one of those subjects for which I’ve been long preparing. It feels like something I should know about – given that so much of Western Civilization springs from it – yet beyond some patchwork knowledge, Greece is overwhelmingly Greek to me. I have a whole pile of titles that I haven’t opened, mainly because I’m not sure of the best place to start.
Roderick Beaton’s The Greeks seemed like as good a place as any. So I picked it up in the spirit of curiosity and acknowledged ignorance.
It’s a good book. But alas, probably not a good place to begin one’s exploration of Greek history.
***
As the title implies – and as Beaton makes clear upfront – The Greeks is not about a place, but about people, specifically Greek-speakers around the world. This is worth noting for a couple reasons. First, because it’s untethered to a physical location, it sometimes wanders far afield, and you end up spending as much time with the Romans and Byzantines as anyone else. Second, Beaton has a lot of rather abstract notions he wants to discuss about civilization, culture, and identity, and he assumes you already know the conventional wisdom as he presents his counterpoints.
This is a book, in other words, that requires readers to have some background before starting, and there were moments when I struggled to keep up with Beaton as he chases down various tangents. It’s like stumbling into an advanced college course without completing the prerequisites.
***
That said, for a book directed at serious students of Greek history, Beaton makes The Greeks relatively accessible. Given that he’s trying to cover 3500 years in 466 pages of text, he is necessarily selective in his topics.
Each of the chapters – which helpfully tell you the time period that’s being covered – unfolds in an overarching chronology, taking us from the days of Homer to the days of Homer Simpson. Within that arc, however, the chapters are thematically oriented. This makes sense, as it’d be impossible to tell you everything that happened.
***
Though Beaton has a laudable academic pedigree, he doesn’t write like a professor. His literary style is engaging from the start. For instance, he begins The Greeks with a wonderful tour of the Eastern Mediterranean in the late Bronze Age, laying the foundation for the rest of the book.
Beaton has a special affinity for linguistics, and spends a lot of time on the Greek language. But my favorite parts of The Greeks occurred when he latches onto famous figures such as Alexander the Great, or takes on extended sequences, such as the Peloponnesian War. Especially good is his coverage of the Byzantine Empire.
The Greeks covers some complex and tangled eras, with empires rising, falling, fracturing, and reforming. The relationship between the ancient city-states, such as Sparta and Athens, was often fraught. One moment they’d be fighting each other; the next they’d be fighting the Persians; and a week later they’d be at each other’s throats again, and perhaps allying with the Persians for their own ends. As someone with only the most superficial understanding of these classical conflicts, I was impressed by Beaton’s ability to keep things clear.
***
The Greeks is heavily weighted in favor of the ancient, at the expense of the more recent. After two hundred pages, we’ve barely reached the common era. It takes about four hundred to reach the twentieth century, by which point the book is almost over.
A lot of what I’ve seen written about The Greeks remarks upon its purported comprehensiveness. But it’s not comprehensive. It doesn’t attempt it. Though the stuff that Beaton covers is covered well, there is an imbalance here that is a bit disappointing. I wanted a lot more on the Greek Revolution in the early nineteenth century, the Balkan Wars of the early twentieth century, and the current state of modern Greece. All those critical moments are rushed.
***
Beaton is a renowned expert on all things Greece. He has written a big, lucid book that draws on a dizzying array of sources. There were several sections where I totally connected to the material, and the pages flew. Ultimately, though, The Greeks does not really stand alone, but is a culmination of all the things that Beaton has thought and written about in his illustrious career. Thus, I feel like I missed out on the total experience. However good this is, I wish that I had waited a bit longer to read it.
July 30, 2022
The Greeks: A Global History is a fascinating, comprehensive study of the 35-century history of the Greeks that spans from the Bronze Age to 2021. Roderick Beaton, Professor Emeritus at King's College, claims that the book is not the study of a place but an examination of the " global reach" of Greek history and culture. The book tells the story of Greek speakers who have inhabited lands associated with the modern nation of Greece and those who have settled in various locations during different historical periods. Beaton describes his work as a chronicle of an " interconnected series of civilizations": Minoan, Mycenean, Classical, Hellenistic, Byzantine, Ottoman, and the modern Greek nation-state. A significant theme throughout the text is Greek identity. Beaton investigates how identities are " created, perpetuated, modified or reinvented over time."
I really liked the book. It is an ambitious historical investigation that met its goals overall. In addition, I was impressed by the depth and sheer volume of Roderick Beaton's knowledge. One of his specializations is the Byzantine Empire, and I found his analysis of this period and the empire's subsequent fall to the Ottomans eye-opening. Beaton's writing is clear and concise, and like any good teacher, he knows how to make his material accessible to his audience. I would recommend The Greeks: A Global History to anyone interested in history or visiting Greece.
I really liked the book. It is an ambitious historical investigation that met its goals overall. In addition, I was impressed by the depth and sheer volume of Roderick Beaton's knowledge. One of his specializations is the Byzantine Empire, and I found his analysis of this period and the empire's subsequent fall to the Ottomans eye-opening. Beaton's writing is clear and concise, and like any good teacher, he knows how to make his material accessible to his audience. I would recommend The Greeks: A Global History to anyone interested in history or visiting Greece.
October 2, 2021
The first thing to understand about this book is that it is not about the Greeks. The Greeks are simply a convenient opportunity to make a larger point about...global something-or-other. It's not entirely clear. He seems to be having an argument with someone who is not the readers of this book, judging from some of his defensive sentence constructions ("It's not true that...").
After reading the preface, I had high hopes, as the author gives one of the most succinct definitions of what it means, and has meant historically, to be Greek: to speak Greek and to participate in the cultures (there are many) of Greek-speaking people. At various times and places, there have been additional criteria, but the two constants have been speaking the language and participating in (one of) the cultures.
Beaton's discussion of the archaic and classical ancients is quite good. Where the book begins its steep decline is with Greek history following the Roman conquest, after which it becomes increasingly obtuse and tedious. When discussing the Roman Empire, Beaton points out how art was able to flourish because of the Roman-imposed peace...this after discussing the explosion of creative and intellectual production in the 5th and 4th centuries BC, during which the irrascible Greeks were constantly at each other's throats. The book devolves into the usual parade of "here is what the ruling class was doing," with a dash of "look how awful the Christians were" and a sprinkle of "modern Greeks only exist because the 'Great powers' took an interest in them." Yawn.
Inevitably, there is a great deal of cherry picking of evidence. We learn, of course, about the tragic, brutal murder of Hypatia but nothing at all about Aelia Eudocia, the 5th century pagan Athenian philosopher's daughter who became an empress of the Eastern Roman Empire and wrote cento poems retelling the life of Christ using lines from Homer. During the middle ages, Beaton focuses on Constantinople (as if Greek-speakers were only there), especially from a governance perspective, but nothing of note about the rich artistic, scholarly, and creative works of Greek speakers and their cultural exchanges with east and west. Oh, and how cute is it (sarcasm alert) that he calls the Greek revolution a "war of independence." What independence? The western powers promptly installed a Bavarian boy (Otto, aged 17) as king, and the nascent Hellenic Republic became the Kingdom of Greece.
Surely, the Greeks can be enigmatic. They seem to have stood at the threshold of three continents, to have had a strong sense of self and cultural confidence while also to have been willing to learn and draw from their neighbors. This can make them hard to understand, if by "understand" you feel the need to pin them down.
If you're looking for insight into the multi-faceted nature of the Greeks and their global influence, this is not the book to find it, despite the optimistically-chosen title.
After reading the preface, I had high hopes, as the author gives one of the most succinct definitions of what it means, and has meant historically, to be Greek: to speak Greek and to participate in the cultures (there are many) of Greek-speaking people. At various times and places, there have been additional criteria, but the two constants have been speaking the language and participating in (one of) the cultures.
Beaton's discussion of the archaic and classical ancients is quite good. Where the book begins its steep decline is with Greek history following the Roman conquest, after which it becomes increasingly obtuse and tedious. When discussing the Roman Empire, Beaton points out how art was able to flourish because of the Roman-imposed peace...this after discussing the explosion of creative and intellectual production in the 5th and 4th centuries BC, during which the irrascible Greeks were constantly at each other's throats. The book devolves into the usual parade of "here is what the ruling class was doing," with a dash of "look how awful the Christians were" and a sprinkle of "modern Greeks only exist because the 'Great powers' took an interest in them." Yawn.
Inevitably, there is a great deal of cherry picking of evidence. We learn, of course, about the tragic, brutal murder of Hypatia but nothing at all about Aelia Eudocia, the 5th century pagan Athenian philosopher's daughter who became an empress of the Eastern Roman Empire and wrote cento poems retelling the life of Christ using lines from Homer. During the middle ages, Beaton focuses on Constantinople (as if Greek-speakers were only there), especially from a governance perspective, but nothing of note about the rich artistic, scholarly, and creative works of Greek speakers and their cultural exchanges with east and west. Oh, and how cute is it (sarcasm alert) that he calls the Greek revolution a "war of independence." What independence? The western powers promptly installed a Bavarian boy (Otto, aged 17) as king, and the nascent Hellenic Republic became the Kingdom of Greece.
Surely, the Greeks can be enigmatic. They seem to have stood at the threshold of three continents, to have had a strong sense of self and cultural confidence while also to have been willing to learn and draw from their neighbors. This can make them hard to understand, if by "understand" you feel the need to pin them down.
If you're looking for insight into the multi-faceted nature of the Greeks and their global influence, this is not the book to find it, despite the optimistically-chosen title.
August 18, 2021
A wonderfully comprehensive history of the Greeks from the Bronze Age to today. Detailed, authoritative, meticulously researched, scholarly yet accessible, it can’t really be faulted. And yet it’s really one for the serious Greek aficionado rather than the general reader and you have to be in for the long-haul – with shame I admit to fast-forwarding on occasion when it all got a bit much for me. That doesn't detract, however, from it’s worth as an important resource for anyone interested in the subject, especially with its maps and illustrations, and it will no doubt prove an invaluable and long-lasting reference book.
November 27, 2021
What an epic book “The Greeks” by Roderick Beaton turned out to be! I picked it up on the appeal of the cover and a reflection of late that my history lessons at school were decidedly selective and predominantly focused on what the English did and didn’t do. The Greeks, having had a massive impact on religion, culture and language, piqued my interest.
Beginning right at the beginning may seem logical but is often not the way of historical books and I so appreciated the context set in this one. The formation of what is now seen as “Greek”, it’s influences and why it came about are given an unbiased account. Equally I liked how the writer, at times, admits we don’t know before offering the current theories.
Despite being considered by some a dry topic, I found this book scintillating especially when it covered elements of how our language today was formed and elaborated on global happenings which I was unaware of. Each chapter is a chunk of time, an era for the Greeks, unpacked whilst still keeping the holistic thread. It makes them long so I found setting time to finish each section in one go helped me follow the history especially with all the unfamiliar names and places.
The book doesn’t focus on the Greece of today or the land it now covers but the history of the Greek-speaking people and where they have been and are now. It goes right through to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the refugee crisis. Better understanding the past has helped me comprehend the complexity of the those seeking asylum in Greece and why accepting the volume arriving is so challenging.
As it is the Greeks, the book is made up of artistic reflection and war strategy, massive upheaval and beautiful poetry. The contrasts are amazing and interesting, I am most grateful I read this one and if you enjoy a well-told historical overview with nuggets of interesting facts tucked in this is one for you! It’s a five out of five on the enJOYment scale.
I received a complimentary copy of the book from Perseus Books through NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.
Beginning right at the beginning may seem logical but is often not the way of historical books and I so appreciated the context set in this one. The formation of what is now seen as “Greek”, it’s influences and why it came about are given an unbiased account. Equally I liked how the writer, at times, admits we don’t know before offering the current theories.
Despite being considered by some a dry topic, I found this book scintillating especially when it covered elements of how our language today was formed and elaborated on global happenings which I was unaware of. Each chapter is a chunk of time, an era for the Greeks, unpacked whilst still keeping the holistic thread. It makes them long so I found setting time to finish each section in one go helped me follow the history especially with all the unfamiliar names and places.
The book doesn’t focus on the Greece of today or the land it now covers but the history of the Greek-speaking people and where they have been and are now. It goes right through to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the refugee crisis. Better understanding the past has helped me comprehend the complexity of the those seeking asylum in Greece and why accepting the volume arriving is so challenging.
As it is the Greeks, the book is made up of artistic reflection and war strategy, massive upheaval and beautiful poetry. The contrasts are amazing and interesting, I am most grateful I read this one and if you enjoy a well-told historical overview with nuggets of interesting facts tucked in this is one for you! It’s a five out of five on the enJOYment scale.
I received a complimentary copy of the book from Perseus Books through NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.
November 19, 2022
“In 1500 BCE there are no buildings anywhere on the mainland to rival those of Crete, either in number or scale.” Note this was a whole millennium before ‘classical’ Greece. Before classical Greece was Minoan Crete at Knossos (supreme between 1700 to 1450 BCE) and the Mycenaean civilization (two different languages and cultures). The Mycenaeans had created Linear B for writing. Minoan Crete ended around 1450 BCE while Mycenaean civilization died around 1200 BCE (along with Troy and the Hittite empire). After that the mainland population fell by one half and the Dark Ages began, but by 800 BC the Dark Ages began to lift although there were no written records. Then comes the invention of the Alphabet which was like the digital revolution of our time. The alphabet led to history, philosophy and literature. The Iliad would take three days to perform before an audience. Homer means hostage and probably wasn’t even the author’s name; so, it may as well been recited first by Marge or Bart. Either way, by 540 BC the poems were central to life in Athens and they were finally written down. Virgil drew on the Iliad and Odyssey for his Aeneid.
Plato talks about the lands of Georgia (River Phasis, now the Rioni) and the Strait of Gibraltar (Pillars of Hercules) so the classical Greek world was very large. The Greek city Massalia, you now would call Marseille. The Greek city Syracuse was not in New York, but in Sicily. Back then Rome was a backwater on the Greek fringe. Back then the Spartans were, in Popeye’s term, complete landlubbers, while the Phoenicians, Etruscans, and Greeks, took to water for travel. The Greeks would argue and negotiate, from which came politics (the affairs of the polis). The Helots were agricultural serfs. Sparta was a collection of settlements and Spartans were full-time soldiers living in a super militarized society. Athens democracy began between 508 to 507 BC. Ionian, Dorian, Aeolian (now modes of the major scales or column designs) were originally early Greek dialects.
The Olympic games began every four years in 776 BC in Olympia. Fighting stopped with an Olympic truce, so athletes could travel freely to the games. This was the time of Sappho the lesbian (600 BC) and tons of NAMBLA style homosexuality. The motto of the Greek Army was “never leave your buddy’s behind.” The marathon originated in a forced 26 miles run by hoplites to warn Athens of Persian attack. Men played all the roles in plays back then, even all the female parts. The Parthenon was built in only fifteen years, and it was built to impress. The Athenians lost the Peloponnesian War. The first recorded pandemic was a plague in Athens in 430 BC in which Pericles died. Back then, long before the highly praised incoherent ramblings of Biden and Trump, the ability to speak well in public was highly praised. These were the days of actually valuing rhetoric and oratory. Literacy became widespread, in these, the days of Euripides, Aristotle, Demosthenes, and Philip of Macedonia. Philip at his height controlled most of Greece, Bulgaria, Albania, North Macedonia, and Turkey.
Philip is assassinated and his son Alexander (the soon to be Great) takes over. Beaton sees Alexander as a psychopath who many times killed people who helped him (or even saved his life) “on the flimsiest of pretexts”, and perhaps had his own father killed. The famed death of 300 Spartans who protected the Thermopylae was in 480 BC during the Persian Wars. More Greeks fought against Alexander than for him during the Persian Wars. When in Egypt, it is said, Alexander laid out the streets of his namesake, Alexandria. Just like standard US foreign policy, Alexander exercised control of lands he conquered by controlling the local ruling classes through their greed and his force. As a result, Greek ways and language went east to Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India. Alexander was dead by 323 BC.
The Greek influence of Alexander’s conquests was notable until 1947 in what was Bactria (Uzbekistan/Pakistan). Aramaic (what homeboy Jesus spoke but with his Galilean accent) was the language of the Near East; the name Jesus in Aramaic is Isho. Under the Ptolemies, Egypt was the richest game in town. Alexandria’s population then rose to one million, and Alexandria’s Pharos lighthouse was a whopping 300 feet high. The famous library of Alexandria brought scholars from everywhere in the Hellenistic world, and everything cataloged, preserved and collected there was written in Greek. Greeks would have seen Roman society as an oligarchy and like Sparta. Many Greek cities were lost after Rome’s Punic Wars took Carthage and Sicily. Both Carthage and Corinth get razed to the ground after all their treasures are sent to Rome in 146 BC.
Mithridates VI commits genocide of 80,000 to 150,000 Romans and Italians in a single day throughout Anatolia. Antony and Cleopatra commit suicide in 30 BC. The Hellenistic kingdom of the Ptolemies was no more. The Ptolemies of Egypt come under Roman protection and a Roman province, and Roman Octavian’s name changes to Augustus thus beginning the Roman Empire. This leads to two hundred years of Pax Romana giving Greeks their longest bout of peace yet. Then comes, Tiberius, Caligula, and Nero. Rome’s empire is biggest under Trajan and Hadrian encompassing Mediterranean to the Euphrates. Ptolemy of Alexandria gives the world the best knowledge of stars and planets until Copernicus in the 1400’s.
How accurate are the Gospels? Not a single eyewitness of Jesus was still alive when they were written. Romans cared more for loyalty to the state than whether you were Christian. What Romans feared was political subversion, not belief. Constantine sees that the single God of Christianity offers the perfect basis for a ‘my way or the highway’ autocratic state. In return all he had to do was not confuse the people by also proclaiming himself emperor or king. In return every Constantinian Christian since then has made it a point of not recognizing the obvious: the cool bottom-up movement of the poor had suddenly become a top-down movement perfect for endless war and (in time) shameless pedophilia. Give me a prophetic Christian (see Cornel West’s book Black Prophetic Fire) instead any day. The Nicene Creed (a one god public confession) is then forced down the throats of the people for reasons of public control – private belief forced to become public. The Roman Empire splits into East (Byzantium) and West. While Rome keeps getting sacked by Goths and Vandals, Byzantium finds gold in the Caucasus, a secret kept form the West. Rome uses Latin, Byzantium uses Greek.
Today’s sports audience mayhem by fans (Football, soccer, etc.) has its origins in the ‘war’ between the Blues and Greens during the days of Theodosius I. A Blues vs Greens quarrel led to 30,000 dead in the Hippodrome. The Hippodrome was built to fit 100,000 people – the Dallas Cowboys Stadium holds only 80,000, while Green Bay’s Lambeau Stadium holds only 81,000. The “approachable and affable” Justinian (creator of Justinian’s Roman law) could order “tens of thousands of quite innocent people to be put to death” in a gentle voice. There’s a talent. One of Justinian’s laws finally made homosexuality illegal even in Greece, which back then was the Christopher Street (or Castro district) of the Western world. Justinian rebuilds the Hagia Sophia with its remarkable dome and dedicates it in 537. For a thousand years, it will be the largest religious building anywhere in the world. Western Christian churches avoided the cool looking dome design like the plague, while Islam (and Orthodox Christianity) embraced it in their mosques. In 539, the Huns crossed the Danube, went through the Balkans and threatened the Greek mainland. Heraclius was the last Roman emperor.
Islam turns the repellant Christian concept of Holy War into jihad. Byzantine and Persian wars had weakened both sides leading Arabs to fill the vacuum; in five years all of Egypt was in Muslim hands. Soon, all of Persia was in Arab hands. The whole Middle East then became a Muslim Caliphate, ruled from Damascus. Byzantines thought they were Romans, not Byzantines. Muslims were fixated that they blew their chance to take Constantinople in 718. The Byzantine defenders had successfully used Greek fire on the Arab fleet, producing the first recorded Fleet enema. Constantinople was in 1015, the richest city in the world. The Great Schism was the split between the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox faiths (based on two ways of how to avoid original Christianity’s obvious preference for the poor). Then came the Crusades which was comically based on doing what Christ would never do. The First Crusade was 80,000 Christian fans of violence. In 1099, they massacred everyone in Jerusalem in 1099.
Fun fact: the name Philadelphia comes from a city in western Anatolia. Christian crusaders sack Constantinople (clearly also Christian) in 1204; the joys of Christian morality. The Byzantine state is shattered. Athens wasn’t always ruled by Greeks: 13th century it’s ruled by a Burgundian prince, 14th century ruled by Catalan mercenaries, 15th century by Florentine dukes. This is the Athens of Midsummer Night’s Dream, the Decameron, and The Knight’s Tale.
With the fall of Constantinople, the Ottoman Empire replaces the Byzantine Empire. To win, the Ottomans had combined Chinese gunpowder with the cannon. Hagia Sophia becomes a mosque. The Vulgate was the Latin translation of the Bible. Like the Romans, the Ottomans cared far more about loyalty to the state, than to your religion. And so, as many Greeks fought for the Ottomans as for Christian states. The battle of Lepanto in 1571, was the turning point for Ottoman expansion into Europe by sea. El Greco (16th century painter) was Greek (as his name suggests). Crete (also known as Candia) became famous for exporting sweet things; from that fact comes the word ‘candy’. Venice tried to control the Greek mainland and failed; Venice was also responsible then for the grievous injury (explosion) to the Parthenon. Russia annexes the whole north shore of the Black Sea (taking Crimea, Sevastopol, Azov) from the Ottomans. This explains the Russian Orthodox faith coming from the Greeks. In the 18th century Greeks had no homeland and were a diaspora. Greece becomes finally formally independent in 1830. In the 1930’s there were still 100,000 Greeks in Egypt. Greeks (like Onassis) made their fortunes away from the Greek mainland. Today, the largest cargo fleet in the world is Greek owned.
In 1967, a coup d’état ruins the chances of a center-left government in Greece and Greece gets a seven-year military dictatorship blamed on the US. Southern Cyprus is also a Greek state like Greece (Turkey still unfairly controls Northern Cyprus). The Greek flag flies also in Southern Cyprus. The 1st official mosque in Athens opens in 2020. Today, Greece has 11,000,000 Greeks while Cyprus has 800,000. In addition, half of the world’s mainland Greeks (7,000,000) still live outside both those countries. And so, in conclusion, you can now see, why the story of the Greeks is clearly not the story of just mainland Greece. Great book – I learned a lot after a lifetime of being rather ignorant on all things Greek. Good show, Mr. Beaton.
Plato talks about the lands of Georgia (River Phasis, now the Rioni) and the Strait of Gibraltar (Pillars of Hercules) so the classical Greek world was very large. The Greek city Massalia, you now would call Marseille. The Greek city Syracuse was not in New York, but in Sicily. Back then Rome was a backwater on the Greek fringe. Back then the Spartans were, in Popeye’s term, complete landlubbers, while the Phoenicians, Etruscans, and Greeks, took to water for travel. The Greeks would argue and negotiate, from which came politics (the affairs of the polis). The Helots were agricultural serfs. Sparta was a collection of settlements and Spartans were full-time soldiers living in a super militarized society. Athens democracy began between 508 to 507 BC. Ionian, Dorian, Aeolian (now modes of the major scales or column designs) were originally early Greek dialects.
The Olympic games began every four years in 776 BC in Olympia. Fighting stopped with an Olympic truce, so athletes could travel freely to the games. This was the time of Sappho the lesbian (600 BC) and tons of NAMBLA style homosexuality. The motto of the Greek Army was “never leave your buddy’s behind.” The marathon originated in a forced 26 miles run by hoplites to warn Athens of Persian attack. Men played all the roles in plays back then, even all the female parts. The Parthenon was built in only fifteen years, and it was built to impress. The Athenians lost the Peloponnesian War. The first recorded pandemic was a plague in Athens in 430 BC in which Pericles died. Back then, long before the highly praised incoherent ramblings of Biden and Trump, the ability to speak well in public was highly praised. These were the days of actually valuing rhetoric and oratory. Literacy became widespread, in these, the days of Euripides, Aristotle, Demosthenes, and Philip of Macedonia. Philip at his height controlled most of Greece, Bulgaria, Albania, North Macedonia, and Turkey.
Philip is assassinated and his son Alexander (the soon to be Great) takes over. Beaton sees Alexander as a psychopath who many times killed people who helped him (or even saved his life) “on the flimsiest of pretexts”, and perhaps had his own father killed. The famed death of 300 Spartans who protected the Thermopylae was in 480 BC during the Persian Wars. More Greeks fought against Alexander than for him during the Persian Wars. When in Egypt, it is said, Alexander laid out the streets of his namesake, Alexandria. Just like standard US foreign policy, Alexander exercised control of lands he conquered by controlling the local ruling classes through their greed and his force. As a result, Greek ways and language went east to Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India. Alexander was dead by 323 BC.
The Greek influence of Alexander’s conquests was notable until 1947 in what was Bactria (Uzbekistan/Pakistan). Aramaic (what homeboy Jesus spoke but with his Galilean accent) was the language of the Near East; the name Jesus in Aramaic is Isho. Under the Ptolemies, Egypt was the richest game in town. Alexandria’s population then rose to one million, and Alexandria’s Pharos lighthouse was a whopping 300 feet high. The famous library of Alexandria brought scholars from everywhere in the Hellenistic world, and everything cataloged, preserved and collected there was written in Greek. Greeks would have seen Roman society as an oligarchy and like Sparta. Many Greek cities were lost after Rome’s Punic Wars took Carthage and Sicily. Both Carthage and Corinth get razed to the ground after all their treasures are sent to Rome in 146 BC.
Mithridates VI commits genocide of 80,000 to 150,000 Romans and Italians in a single day throughout Anatolia. Antony and Cleopatra commit suicide in 30 BC. The Hellenistic kingdom of the Ptolemies was no more. The Ptolemies of Egypt come under Roman protection and a Roman province, and Roman Octavian’s name changes to Augustus thus beginning the Roman Empire. This leads to two hundred years of Pax Romana giving Greeks their longest bout of peace yet. Then comes, Tiberius, Caligula, and Nero. Rome’s empire is biggest under Trajan and Hadrian encompassing Mediterranean to the Euphrates. Ptolemy of Alexandria gives the world the best knowledge of stars and planets until Copernicus in the 1400’s.
How accurate are the Gospels? Not a single eyewitness of Jesus was still alive when they were written. Romans cared more for loyalty to the state than whether you were Christian. What Romans feared was political subversion, not belief. Constantine sees that the single God of Christianity offers the perfect basis for a ‘my way or the highway’ autocratic state. In return all he had to do was not confuse the people by also proclaiming himself emperor or king. In return every Constantinian Christian since then has made it a point of not recognizing the obvious: the cool bottom-up movement of the poor had suddenly become a top-down movement perfect for endless war and (in time) shameless pedophilia. Give me a prophetic Christian (see Cornel West’s book Black Prophetic Fire) instead any day. The Nicene Creed (a one god public confession) is then forced down the throats of the people for reasons of public control – private belief forced to become public. The Roman Empire splits into East (Byzantium) and West. While Rome keeps getting sacked by Goths and Vandals, Byzantium finds gold in the Caucasus, a secret kept form the West. Rome uses Latin, Byzantium uses Greek.
Today’s sports audience mayhem by fans (Football, soccer, etc.) has its origins in the ‘war’ between the Blues and Greens during the days of Theodosius I. A Blues vs Greens quarrel led to 30,000 dead in the Hippodrome. The Hippodrome was built to fit 100,000 people – the Dallas Cowboys Stadium holds only 80,000, while Green Bay’s Lambeau Stadium holds only 81,000. The “approachable and affable” Justinian (creator of Justinian’s Roman law) could order “tens of thousands of quite innocent people to be put to death” in a gentle voice. There’s a talent. One of Justinian’s laws finally made homosexuality illegal even in Greece, which back then was the Christopher Street (or Castro district) of the Western world. Justinian rebuilds the Hagia Sophia with its remarkable dome and dedicates it in 537. For a thousand years, it will be the largest religious building anywhere in the world. Western Christian churches avoided the cool looking dome design like the plague, while Islam (and Orthodox Christianity) embraced it in their mosques. In 539, the Huns crossed the Danube, went through the Balkans and threatened the Greek mainland. Heraclius was the last Roman emperor.
Islam turns the repellant Christian concept of Holy War into jihad. Byzantine and Persian wars had weakened both sides leading Arabs to fill the vacuum; in five years all of Egypt was in Muslim hands. Soon, all of Persia was in Arab hands. The whole Middle East then became a Muslim Caliphate, ruled from Damascus. Byzantines thought they were Romans, not Byzantines. Muslims were fixated that they blew their chance to take Constantinople in 718. The Byzantine defenders had successfully used Greek fire on the Arab fleet, producing the first recorded Fleet enema. Constantinople was in 1015, the richest city in the world. The Great Schism was the split between the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox faiths (based on two ways of how to avoid original Christianity’s obvious preference for the poor). Then came the Crusades which was comically based on doing what Christ would never do. The First Crusade was 80,000 Christian fans of violence. In 1099, they massacred everyone in Jerusalem in 1099.
Fun fact: the name Philadelphia comes from a city in western Anatolia. Christian crusaders sack Constantinople (clearly also Christian) in 1204; the joys of Christian morality. The Byzantine state is shattered. Athens wasn’t always ruled by Greeks: 13th century it’s ruled by a Burgundian prince, 14th century ruled by Catalan mercenaries, 15th century by Florentine dukes. This is the Athens of Midsummer Night’s Dream, the Decameron, and The Knight’s Tale.
With the fall of Constantinople, the Ottoman Empire replaces the Byzantine Empire. To win, the Ottomans had combined Chinese gunpowder with the cannon. Hagia Sophia becomes a mosque. The Vulgate was the Latin translation of the Bible. Like the Romans, the Ottomans cared far more about loyalty to the state, than to your religion. And so, as many Greeks fought for the Ottomans as for Christian states. The battle of Lepanto in 1571, was the turning point for Ottoman expansion into Europe by sea. El Greco (16th century painter) was Greek (as his name suggests). Crete (also known as Candia) became famous for exporting sweet things; from that fact comes the word ‘candy’. Venice tried to control the Greek mainland and failed; Venice was also responsible then for the grievous injury (explosion) to the Parthenon. Russia annexes the whole north shore of the Black Sea (taking Crimea, Sevastopol, Azov) from the Ottomans. This explains the Russian Orthodox faith coming from the Greeks. In the 18th century Greeks had no homeland and were a diaspora. Greece becomes finally formally independent in 1830. In the 1930’s there were still 100,000 Greeks in Egypt. Greeks (like Onassis) made their fortunes away from the Greek mainland. Today, the largest cargo fleet in the world is Greek owned.
In 1967, a coup d’état ruins the chances of a center-left government in Greece and Greece gets a seven-year military dictatorship blamed on the US. Southern Cyprus is also a Greek state like Greece (Turkey still unfairly controls Northern Cyprus). The Greek flag flies also in Southern Cyprus. The 1st official mosque in Athens opens in 2020. Today, Greece has 11,000,000 Greeks while Cyprus has 800,000. In addition, half of the world’s mainland Greeks (7,000,000) still live outside both those countries. And so, in conclusion, you can now see, why the story of the Greeks is clearly not the story of just mainland Greece. Great book – I learned a lot after a lifetime of being rather ignorant on all things Greek. Good show, Mr. Beaton.
December 7, 2024
An interesting book that attempts to trace the global history of Greece from Babylon to the 21st century, which inevitably ends up conditioning the treatment of the themes of each era, given that it doesn't go beyond 600 pages. In my case, I started reading it to gain a better understanding of how Greece had asserted itself so fully in the political, cultural and scientific spheres. Still, I soon realised that everything was described in a rushed manner on the surface. It's not bad, it just doesn't add much when you've already read a few books on Ancient Greece.
On the other hand, what is truly relevant in Greek history happened up until the decline of the Roman Empire, from which point the torch of knowledge production was passed on to other territories. First to Asia, the Middle East and Africa, and later, returning to Europe to focus on the centre and northern geographies.
3.5/5
On the other hand, what is truly relevant in Greek history happened up until the decline of the Roman Empire, from which point the torch of knowledge production was passed on to other territories. First to Asia, the Middle East and Africa, and later, returning to Europe to focus on the centre and northern geographies.
3.5/5
October 9, 2022
একটা বইয়ের মাঝে সম্পূর্ন গ্রীক জাতির ইতিহাস জানতে চাইলে এই বইটা অবশ্যপাঠ্য। সেই প্রাচীন কাল থেকে শুরু করে ২০২১ পর্যন্ত একটি প্রাচীন জাতির উত্থান-পতনের ইতিহাস অত্যন্ত যত্ন করে সুন্দরভাবে তুলে ধরেছেন লেখক। পড়তে গিয়ে একবারের জন্যও একঘেয়ে লাগেনি৷ এমনকি মনেও হয় নি কোন নন-ফিকশন পড়ছি৷ পুরোটা সময় উপভোগ করেছি
January 28, 2024
I loved this book in part because I’ve never actually read a book that covers Greek language culture as a whole, from its origins to modern Greece and Cyprus. The book’s chapters on Mycenae, the Dark Age, and classical Greece were excellent, but so too were his treatment of Hellenism, Byzantium, and Medieval Greece.
March 27, 2022
A robust survey of Greek influence from prehistory to just before the global pandemic.
The author treats the concept of ‘Greek’ in a very loose way. The work covers the influence of the Greek language and culture as well as the geographic and population dimensions.
Covering so much material in a single work inevitably leads to a very superficial treatment of most subjects. Though some subjects, such as the Orthodox Church are given inordinate amounts of attention.
The author treats the concept of ‘Greek’ in a very loose way. The work covers the influence of the Greek language and culture as well as the geographic and population dimensions.
Covering so much material in a single work inevitably leads to a very superficial treatment of most subjects. Though some subjects, such as the Orthodox Church are given inordinate amounts of attention.
October 24, 2024
"A través de este trabajo, Roderick Beaton -reconocido académico británico especializado en la literatura y la historia de Grecia- nos propone un recorrido exhaustivo por más de 3000 años de historia griega, desde la Edad de Bronce hasta nuestros días..."
RESEÑA COMPLETA: https://atrapadaenunashojasdepapel.bl...
RESEÑA COMPLETA: https://atrapadaenunashojasdepapel.bl...
April 13, 2025
¿Cómo lograr un relato coherente, interesante y muy académico que permita condensar los más de 3.000 años de historia que trae a cuestas lo que conocemos como "Civilización Griega", sin limitarse a un sólo período histórico o a las barreras del variante entorno geográfico por el que discurrió su historia? Pues el historiador y helenista británico Roderick Beaton logra a través de esta maravilla de libro titulada "Los Griegos: Una Historia Global" contar la apasionante historia griega -desde los minoicos y micénicos hasta la crisis económica actual- en torno a un eje profundo y duradero: la lengua griega como portadora de identidad, continuidad y transformación.
Desde los primeros registros escritos en griego micénico —las tablillas en lineal B que datan del segundo milenio a.C.— pasando por la invención del "alfabeto" como concepto concreto, hasta los grafitis contemporáneos de protesta en las calles de Atenas, la lengua griega aparece como una presencia constante y viva, capaz de adaptarse a través de los siglos y las circunstancias. Y aunque el libro está estructurado narrativamente a partir de un relato cronológico y de grandes eventos políticos y culturales; el hilo que une todos estos relatos siempre será el lenguaje griego como aquella conciencia lingüística que permitió a los griegos desarrollar una identidad étnica a pesar de las constantes guerras entre ciudades-estado de su período clásico; de las invasiones extranjeras (que han pasado desde el Imperio Romano, los Otomanos, los Italianos y hasta la Alemania Nazi); y la diáspora posterior a la guerra civil de 1946.
No tengo dudas que este libro será perfecto para quien busque una historia directa, concisa y magistralmente narrada del mundo griego, y que a su vez supere aquellos relatos que sólo centran su atención en la Grecia Clásica, en Esparta o en Atenas. Es un maravilloso acierto contar la historia del pueblo griego desde la Edad del Bronce hasta el siglo XXI, a través de la evolución y continuidad de su lengua porque nos permite comprender cómo comunidades griegas tan opuestas geográficamente como estarían New York y Melbourne, mantienen una raigambre tan poderosa en sus raíces y su historia - que a final de cuentas es la historia de nuestra propia civilización occidental-.
Desde los primeros registros escritos en griego micénico —las tablillas en lineal B que datan del segundo milenio a.C.— pasando por la invención del "alfabeto" como concepto concreto, hasta los grafitis contemporáneos de protesta en las calles de Atenas, la lengua griega aparece como una presencia constante y viva, capaz de adaptarse a través de los siglos y las circunstancias. Y aunque el libro está estructurado narrativamente a partir de un relato cronológico y de grandes eventos políticos y culturales; el hilo que une todos estos relatos siempre será el lenguaje griego como aquella conciencia lingüística que permitió a los griegos desarrollar una identidad étnica a pesar de las constantes guerras entre ciudades-estado de su período clásico; de las invasiones extranjeras (que han pasado desde el Imperio Romano, los Otomanos, los Italianos y hasta la Alemania Nazi); y la diáspora posterior a la guerra civil de 1946.
No tengo dudas que este libro será perfecto para quien busque una historia directa, concisa y magistralmente narrada del mundo griego, y que a su vez supere aquellos relatos que sólo centran su atención en la Grecia Clásica, en Esparta o en Atenas. Es un maravilloso acierto contar la historia del pueblo griego desde la Edad del Bronce hasta el siglo XXI, a través de la evolución y continuidad de su lengua porque nos permite comprender cómo comunidades griegas tan opuestas geográficamente como estarían New York y Melbourne, mantienen una raigambre tan poderosa en sus raíces y su historia - que a final de cuentas es la historia de nuestra propia civilización occidental-.
July 17, 2022
4.5. A great companion whilst in Greece. This is an ambitious story - 3500 years of ‘Greek’ history, told in an engaging, but never dumbed-down way. What does it means to be Greek? The Greeks have survived throughout the ages, although Greek as an identity has changed and taken on different meanings in different times and places. The story of how they have reinvented themselves under new circumstances is also a story of how they have shaped our world. Highly recommended.
March 31, 2023
"We all Share a Bond as Men of One Substance"
In this monumental Greek history, Roderick Beaton bridges the Greek history of the world with the world of modern Greece. Beginning in antiquity, and building on the pillars of politics, religion, and philosophy that the Greeks provided civilization; Beaton elucidates the culture and identity of Greeks today. I chose this global history to provide a backdrop to my current study/ review of Greek mythology. It is an excellent source for context of Greek legends and culture.
History more rightly belongs with the Greek than with any civilization that came before, since it was the Greek who first began to use writing to tell stories. Most of the writing that we have found from before the Greek texts consists almost entirely of inventories, tax, and tallies. The Iliad and the Odyssey, along with the earliest books of Hebrew scripture are the earliest written narratives in the world.
The author provides a general survey of the rise and fall of historical leaders through the millennia, as well as the major conflicts and world wars that occurred in ancient times. He describes the major cultural contributions of each new age, and the Greek role in the spread of Christianity, up to and including the rise and fall of the Byzantine Empire in the East. He gives a synopses of the Greek Revival and the modern Greek state; and discusses key questions for the world at large and the Greek diaspora today. In addition, the book is furnished with numerous maps and photos.
I recommend this history for readers who want a contextual conception of Greece. The work was published October 2021, and is most relevant for current events. I think the author treated the subject with perspective and an in-depth knowledge of his subject matter. It is a thick hardback book and will take a bit of time for the reader to cover, but it is fascinating reading! I most enjoyed reading about Mycenaean archeology and Minoan language history, as well as the ancient World Wars.
In this monumental Greek history, Roderick Beaton bridges the Greek history of the world with the world of modern Greece. Beginning in antiquity, and building on the pillars of politics, religion, and philosophy that the Greeks provided civilization; Beaton elucidates the culture and identity of Greeks today. I chose this global history to provide a backdrop to my current study/ review of Greek mythology. It is an excellent source for context of Greek legends and culture.
History more rightly belongs with the Greek than with any civilization that came before, since it was the Greek who first began to use writing to tell stories. Most of the writing that we have found from before the Greek texts consists almost entirely of inventories, tax, and tallies. The Iliad and the Odyssey, along with the earliest books of Hebrew scripture are the earliest written narratives in the world.
The author provides a general survey of the rise and fall of historical leaders through the millennia, as well as the major conflicts and world wars that occurred in ancient times. He describes the major cultural contributions of each new age, and the Greek role in the spread of Christianity, up to and including the rise and fall of the Byzantine Empire in the East. He gives a synopses of the Greek Revival and the modern Greek state; and discusses key questions for the world at large and the Greek diaspora today. In addition, the book is furnished with numerous maps and photos.
I recommend this history for readers who want a contextual conception of Greece. The work was published October 2021, and is most relevant for current events. I think the author treated the subject with perspective and an in-depth knowledge of his subject matter. It is a thick hardback book and will take a bit of time for the reader to cover, but it is fascinating reading! I most enjoyed reading about Mycenaean archeology and Minoan language history, as well as the ancient World Wars.
September 3, 2023
Roderick Beaton endeavors to achieve the impossible in this book! To talk about 3 millennia of history in approximately 450 pages. My overall impression nonetheless is that he is successful! First, because most of the important events are in there, even if they are covered by just one sentence (for instance the great schism between the Orthodox and Catholic Church in 1055), second because he poses and attempts to answer many of the deeply rooted questions about the Greek history and “greekness” (Had the ancient Greeks had a common national identity? Why Christianity was adopted by Constantine and why it spread so quickly replacing paganism? What have Greeks had in common at different eras throughout the centuries?), and third because the book is a page-turner!
Beaton puts emphasis on the Greek language which has undoubtedly been the common link for Greeks of all ages. But also highlights the importance of education (paideia) for Greeks and their constant mobility which led from the “apoikies” of the ancient world to the “paroikies” after the fall of Constantinople. The most exciting chapters in my opinion were those covering the Hellenistic years (extremely interesting period to delve into) and the years after the fall of Constantinople. Beaton clearly says that the well-educated Greeks who fled Constantinople after its fall were the catalyst for the Renaissance to come true in Europe!
Not everything is evenly covered in this book and this is understandable. Many may also disagree with some of the author’s views eg Byzantium is presented as a very dark period (Steven Runciman would disagree with that) or Greeks’ metaphysical quest over the centuries is massively underplayed. However, this book is an achievement and a very pleasant one to read! It can be equally pleasant and useful, I think, for the average knowledgeable Greek but also for a non-Greek audience who may want to get a feel about the very essence of the Greek civilisation.
Beaton puts emphasis on the Greek language which has undoubtedly been the common link for Greeks of all ages. But also highlights the importance of education (paideia) for Greeks and their constant mobility which led from the “apoikies” of the ancient world to the “paroikies” after the fall of Constantinople. The most exciting chapters in my opinion were those covering the Hellenistic years (extremely interesting period to delve into) and the years after the fall of Constantinople. Beaton clearly says that the well-educated Greeks who fled Constantinople after its fall were the catalyst for the Renaissance to come true in Europe!
Not everything is evenly covered in this book and this is understandable. Many may also disagree with some of the author’s views eg Byzantium is presented as a very dark period (Steven Runciman would disagree with that) or Greeks’ metaphysical quest over the centuries is massively underplayed. However, this book is an achievement and a very pleasant one to read! It can be equally pleasant and useful, I think, for the average knowledgeable Greek but also for a non-Greek audience who may want to get a feel about the very essence of the Greek civilisation.
February 11, 2025
Es muy complicado encajar las piezas de una historia que dura más de 3000 años y este libro lo consigue de una manera muy acertada. Desde las leyendas fundacionales micénicas hasta la reciente crisis financiera que asoló Grecia, un gran retrato del mundo helenístico, más cómo un referente cultural e idiomático que como un entorno geográfico concreto. Beaton no se limita a la Grecia clásica, sino que explora la influencia helénica en Bizancio, el Imperio Otomano y la Grecia moderna, lo que proporciona una visión más amplia que la habitual en relatos centrados solo en Atenas y Esparta. Un gran acierto a la hora de ofrecer un retrato global de un influjo cultural tan complejo.
Want to read
August 8, 2023Dewey 909 B38g
January 31, 2022
This is two books in one. A history book about Greek-speaking people, not the Greek nation (as the author clarifies in the preface), and an appropriation of the same people, at the expense of all other influences, as the source of European civilization.
Where I enjoyed the book, it was for the orientation to Crete and other societies, as well as to ancient names and places.
Where the author surprised me was in passages such as this: “ . . . it would be self-evident to every Byzantine Christian that the struggles of their empire against the forces of Islam were a continuation of the struggles of Athens and Sparta in the fifth century BCE” (pg. 113). It is remarkable equivalence the author is drawing between the pre-Islamic Persian empire and the conflicts centuries later in the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantine) of Constantinople.
Readers of history and of ancient civilization may wonder, as I did, about the author’s agenda. What at times seems like a purposeful intention to ignore the confluences of many cultures—that came together in Asia Minor—mars the scholarship and the potential of the book.
Where I enjoyed the book, it was for the orientation to Crete and other societies, as well as to ancient names and places.
Where the author surprised me was in passages such as this: “ . . . it would be self-evident to every Byzantine Christian that the struggles of their empire against the forces of Islam were a continuation of the struggles of Athens and Sparta in the fifth century BCE” (pg. 113). It is remarkable equivalence the author is drawing between the pre-Islamic Persian empire and the conflicts centuries later in the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantine) of Constantinople.
Readers of history and of ancient civilization may wonder, as I did, about the author’s agenda. What at times seems like a purposeful intention to ignore the confluences of many cultures—that came together in Asia Minor—mars the scholarship and the potential of the book.
October 14, 2022
This is not a history of Greece. Rather, it’s a history of Greeks in the world, including the long entanglements with tbd Byzantine empire. It’s not an easy book to read, especially in the BCE sections, where peoples and places come and go at a rapid pace (although archaeologists probably love this part). But for the casual reader, too much detail and confusion.
April 5, 2023
Το βρήκα εξαιρετικό.Μία εμπεριστατωμένη και χρονικά σφιχτοδεμένη ιστορία των απανταχού Ελλήνων.Κατορθώνει να μετατοπίσει το κέντρο βάρους της ελληνικής ιστορίας όπως την διδαχτήκαμε στα σχολεία μας και το αποτέλεσμα είναι πιό ελληνοκεντρικό από αυτό που επεδίωκαν τα εκάστοτε υπουργεία «παιδείας».Γραμμένο για Έλληνες από έναν φιλέλληνα…Άγγλο,τι άλλο.
November 10, 2021
So many names, so many dates, so many points that seem rather, um, pointless. Seriously, there was some interesting stuff in here, but I struggled to identify a little unifying theory other than “it all comes back to Constantinople.”
May 11, 2023
Μία συναρπαστική ιστορία του ταξιδιού των Ελλήνων από την αρχαιότητα έως σήμερα.
February 6, 2023
Really engaging history of The Greeks and their identity, how it’s changed over the centuries, and how their accomplishments have impacted the world. I thought I knew about The Greeks because I had some vague knowledge about Ancient Greece and modern day Greece — but there’s so much more to it and it was really eye-opening to explore the impacts of religion, wars, what makes one Greek, and even shifts in the words used to self-identify.
August 21, 2023
A thorough, if somehow reduced history of the Greeks that centers on the success of the primordiality of thoughts instilled by their creation in the European and modern world. It fails to render their fringe status of their appearance, but otherwise it correctly sees to the early and classical improvements brought to the world, the role in the Roman construct, the Christianity, later only in Orthodoxy, the Ottoman empire and the modern era.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 23, 2024
“Every Greek, everywhere in the world, is today a Hellene in his or her own language.”
Wow. A beautifully written, equally monumental history of the Greek speaking world. I had a blast learning about my heritage. Beaton deserves high praise for making everything so accessible. Definitely got a bit dense and dry at times, but who cares. It was awesome.
Wow. A beautifully written, equally monumental history of the Greek speaking world. I had a blast learning about my heritage. Beaton deserves high praise for making everything so accessible. Definitely got a bit dense and dry at times, but who cares. It was awesome.
October 3, 2022
While I would take exception to a few of its claims regarding early Christianity, this was an interesting, helpful, and unique account of Greek history not limited to one time period, but following their history up to the present time.
April 9, 2025
This was a most wonderful read.
October 10, 2025
Apparently I don’t want to know what the rest of the world is doing as much as I want to know what the Christians are up to
July 11, 2023
Unfortunately, I just couldn't gel with this author. I found it incredibly boring to read.
September 20, 2023
odd book
a few questionable statements
but as a condensed soup, it's okay
If you want to know about the Greeks after the decline of Athens and Rome in the Dark Ages, this book will do things well up to the World War...
........
The New York Journal of Books
eaton himself insists on the plural nature of this as he traces “the multiple ways in which Greeks have interacted with all manner of outsiders over more than three millennnia.” From the development of the alphabet to literature to forms of government to science to religion to art, the world has taken a lot of the treasures the Greeks have invented and expanded upon their gifts. The picture Beaton paints of ancient Greece will be familiar, but what he does exceptionally well is to describe how the Greeks continue as a culture through early Christianity and the Byzanine empire to the Enlightment and beyond.
The chapters on the Ottoman Empire and Greek self-determination are especially interesting, a less well-known part of their history:...
Beaton explores the many ways Greek thinking and values have spread around the world (the reason this book is a “global history.”) He ends with present-day issues, the many refugees flooding Lesbos, the place Greece holds as a gateway to Europe. It’s a fitting image for the outsized influence the Greeks have had, so much bigger than the small slice of land they occupy.
---
Voegelin View [an odd site]
Roderick Beaton’s The Greeks: A Global History, is a whirlwind tour of Greek history from its familiar ancient trappings to its less familiar medieval and modern history. It is important, here, to understand what the book is and what the book is not.
It is not a new history offering a bold, new, provocative thesis. It is a new history that tries to present a concise chronological history of the Greek-speaking peoples from their cloudy origins in the Aegean, Crete, and Mycenae to the twenty-first century.
There are, nonetheless, some insightful moments to new readers or familiar readers. Although the history is meant to go beyond the usual fanfare and interest in “classical Greece,” the chapters dealing with the classical era take up a substantial portion of the book and offer some nice insights to new readers and possibly to readers familiar with some of the classical sources.
For instance, in assessing how later generations of Europeans, like John Stuart Mill, could claim that the origin and identity of Europe owed more to the Greek victories against Persia rather than the Norman conquests, Beaton offers an important reminder that often slips our consideration: “the invention of history.”
As Beaton critically notes, the Greek word employed by Herodotus means “enquiry.” Herodotus’s Histories is not really about “facts” and “dates” and “events.”
There is a broader ideological agenda at play: the attempt to advocate a united identity and politics among the Greeks. That idea of unity has been persuasively seductive ever since.
As Beaton notes, “Herodotus rarely misses an opportunity to urge upon his hearers a sense of unity as Greeks in the face of a common enemy.”
Continuing onward, this struggle for a united identity and politics is part and parcel of the Peloponnesian War.
It is at the heart of the cosmopolitan political philosophy of Plato (possibly, also, Socrates) and Isocrates. Its foundations were laid by Philip of Macedon and brought to fruition before sudden and rapturous collapse by Alexander the Great.
The failure to bring about that unity, however, brought forth a more important unitive contribution. A united Greek politics failed. But the Greek language became the cosmopolitan language of the educated world (and arguably remains so to this day).
Here, Beaton’s implicit thesis and history is worthwhile. As he noted in his introduction, this is not a history of a geography or a specific ethnic group or a political entity. It is a history of the Greek-speaking peoples and the Greek language.
And that language is one of three that has a longstanding continuous use-case (the others being Hebrew and Mandarin Chinese). As we know from the history of Alexander and Hellenism, “the effects of [Alexander’s] conquests was already, visibly, to carry Greek ideas, Greek ways of doing and making things, and above the Greek language far inland from the places where they had started out, across the Asian landmass as far as today’s Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the northwestern corner of India.”
While it is in vogue, today, to critique Eurocentrism (i.e., the “fathers” of science, history, literature, etc. aren’t Greek but various far eastern and Levantine-Mesopotamian individuals), the problem with this critique is that it doesn’t accept the obvious.
True, some sources outside of Greece deal with the humanities and sciences. The problem is those sources are minor, miniscule, in comparison to the trove of Greek writings we still have on these subjects (and we also know a lot of Greek writing was lost).
Precisely because Greek writings and its language survived and became the basis for the educated culture of Europe, North Africa, and the Near East, Greek has the greater prominence and weight to it.
As Samuel Noah Kramer wrote, history may begin at Sumer but history endured and reached its recognizable form in Greece.
Thus, Greek became the language of philosophy, arts and literature, and religion (with the translation of the uncanonical Hebrew Scriptures into the Septuagint and the New Testament writings in Koine Greek) and spread throughout the world as philosophy, art, literature, and Christianity spread.
It could be said no moment of enlightenment was without the Greek language, from Antiquity to the present.
Following the death of Alexander and the Hellenistic process and subsequent subjugation under the Roman Empire (which didn’t destroy the Greek language, importantly), Beaton’s history turns to what most readers are less familiar with: the history of “Greece” in the Middle Ages and into early modernity and modernity.
Beaton’s work is, therefore, extremely useful to readers whose knowledge of Greek history and culture after Alexander is limited. In concise rapidity, Beaton takes us through the highs and lows of Roman conquest, the Byzantines, the rise of Islam and the Arab conquests (and the influence of Greek on the followers of Muhammad), Europe’s Constantinople complex, the contests between Venice and Catholic Christian crusader against the Ottomans and the tensions and paradoxes of two religious faiths fighting over the residual legacy of ancient Athens and the Greek tradition (often at the expense of a third religion: the Greek Orthodox, though Greek Orthodox Christians often found a greater tolerance and social mobility under the Ottomans than with their Western Catholic co-religionists).
While the book promises a global history of many millennia, the bulk of the book is still set in the ancient and medieval periods that readers may have familiarity with.
Though the push into modernity is the smallest component of the work, what Beaton has provided is exceptional in his concise overview.
We learn, especially as Greece is occupied by Venetians, then Turks, and finally achieve independence, how a combination of national identity, territory, and Greek Orthodoxy became the backbone of this newly won revolutionary identity that has produced the Greece we see on a map today and the Greece we have either traveled to or dream of traveling to.
We also learn of the larger “national” aspiration of the Greeks and their continued prominence in diaspora communities well into the early and mid-twentieth century especially in places like Egypt until the catastrophes and steady decline after the world wars changed things.
Readers who might complain about the broad and simplistic narrative must remember, Beaton is not writing a history of ancient Athens and Sparta, Byzantium, the Arab Conquests, the Crusades, Venice and the Ottoman Empire’s contest for the Mediterranean, or the Greek War for Independence.
He is writing a global history stretching over 3,000 years to bring a fuller portrait of Greece and her contributions to a reading audience that tends to only be familiar with bits and pieces of that extensive history.
As such, Beaton’s book is the best concise introduction to the large scope of Greek history.
Yet in any such book there are, rightfully, problems. Let me highlight one such example, his short treatment of Plato whom he says derided life in this world and offered an “otherworldly” philosophy.
This is eminently not true.
Plato’s philosophy of the Forms entails embodied living in this world. He was, after all, a political philosophy first and foremost whose interests were tied to the daily reality of living in a polis.
The otherworldly Forms serve as the ideal to strive to embody in this life which will make this life better, more just, and less cruel—not a flight from this world but a striving to create a better world.
It wasn’t until the Neoplatonists allegorized Plato that the misinterpretation of Plato as advocating otherworldly flight emerged (then given greater credence in the Christian adoption of Plato’s metaphysics divorced from his politics which was elaborated in systematic form in the Renaissance).
Scattered throughout the book are some statements that are, in fact, questionable from that deeper scholarly perspective that Beaton must forego to write his history of the Greeks spanning three and half millennia but that doesn’t really diminish this wonderful summary history.
In his remarkable book.... [he] takes up the mantle to bring us the best considerations....
The Greeks gave to us a big picture understanding of human nature, our place in the cosmos, and the meaning and purpose of life. Beaton, fittingly, has given us a big picture understanding of those peoples whom we are still influenced by.....
In reading Beaton, we come to know the continued influence of the Greeks on us. Our own conceptions of geopolitics, history, art, science, philosophy, and more, are all still indebted to those inspirational, though imperfect, explorers, artists, warriors, thinkers, missionaries, slaves, and freedom fighters.
---
The Greek News Agenda
Following his two wonderful biographies on Lord Byron and George Seferis, as well as his book ‘Greece: Biography of a Modern Nation’, Beaton undertakes with his monumental new work an enormous and difficult task: to narrate not the history of Greece, but the history of the Greeks, from the dawn of civilization to the present day.
Over the millennia, the Greeks underwent various transformations, either as subjects of the kings of Mycenae or Pylos, citizens of ancient Athens or Syracuse, inhabitants of the Hellenistic kingdoms, subjects of the Roman emperor, Roman citizens from 212 AD, subjects of the Byzantine Emperor and then of the Doge of Venice or the Sultan, citizens of the Hellenic Republic or the Republic of Cyprus, members of the Greek communities of the USA, Alexandria or Mariupol. What connects them all is what Beaton describes as "the invisible to archaeologists, but destined to evolve into the most important exportable creation of the Greeks": the Greek language.
With his vivid, intelligible and unpretentious style, his straightforward and lucid thinking, Beaton starts from the beginnings of the Minoan and Mycenaean civilizations, where the first speakers of Greek and the birth of Greek culture coincide. He leaves no doubt as to the significance and global influence of Greek culture, which largely stems from literature.
He emphasizes that wherever the Mycenaean merchants traveled with their small ships, they brought their language with them, even to the city of Troy. The Mycenaean era created collective memories that survived because they were later recorded. As a result, these myths and legends that were captured in writing are still known to us today – through the tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides and the epic poems of Homer – and have never ceased to be read, copied, perfected, and commented upon.
In equally clear words, combining historical, geographical, archaeological and philological elements, Beaton explains how we came to the invention of the alphabet, to the transition from oral to written tradition, starting with the Homeric epics, which have been a source of inspiration for generations of writers, composers, directors, painters, sculptors, philosophers for thousands of years.
What we now call literature, Beaton notes, was born with the Iliad and the Odyssey, adding the following critical observation: "And so in the end, the true heroes of this story turn out to be not the warriors, with their deeds of valour or ingenuity, but the poet and the Greek language in which he tells his tale. Anyone can win a place on the roll of honour if he lives up to a set of values that the poet assumes are universal.
In many ways, the most sympathetically presented of all the heroes in the Iliad, on either side, is the enemy champion, Hector. Homer’s world is a Greek world only because Homer’s words are Greek." With these two phrases, Beaton rebuts the superficial militant approach on racism in the classic epics.
Outlining the map of Hellenism that remains the same to this day, Beaton explains the profound relationship of the Greeks with the sea, drawing attention to the fact that all Greek colonies in antiquity were around the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, not deep in the hinterland of the then known world.
He clearly and convincingly analyzes the reasons for the birth of democracy in the Greek world, explaining why, in Greek cities, for the first time in history, the rule of law stood above officials and governors, kings and generals, and even tyrants.
He describes how philosophy appeared in the Greek cities of Ionia, where Heraclitus the Ephesian realized that the universe can also be explained according to laws. "Modern science begins with Heraclitus," Beaton notes characteristically.
He refers to the common consciousness of Greekness through participation in the Olympic Games and common religious ceremonies in Delos or Delphi. His pertinent analysis points out that the relationship of the Greeks with God has always been of a transactional nature, from the time of the Delphic votive offerings to General Makrygiannis’ agreement with Saint John to provide him with arms.
He correctly refers to the first time we encounter a written record of the common Greek identity, that is, in Aeschylus’ tragedy “The Persians”, with the war chant of the battle of Salamis "Sons of Hellenes, onward, set free your fatherland, your children, wives, the homes of your ancestral Gods and your forefathers’ graves."
The influence of classical antiquity in the then known world was wide and, as Professor Roderick Beaton observes "the name of Greeks [came] to be understood, not in terms of kingship any more, but of a way of thinking, and people to be called Greeks if they share our educational system, rather than a common ancestry."
According to Papadopoulos, a central motif of Beaton’s book is that the history of the Greeks far exceeds that of the Greek state.
Papadopoulos concludes his review noting that what he finds most impressive is how Beaton understood that the Greek language, a language that has been spoken uninterruptedly for three thousand years, and in which masterpieces have been written, is the defining element of Greek identity.
[Vassilis Papadopoulos, a career diplomat at the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as well as a scholar specialized in Literature and the history of Greek language, has reviewed Roderick Beaton’s new book, The Greeks: A Global History, for literary review The Book’s Journal.]
---
The Guardian
In this way, Beaton’s language-based definition of the Greeks is far more than a narrative frame. It goes to the heart of a longstanding academic question, and one of the most charged debates among contemporary Greeks themselves: what “counts” as Greek? The current Greek nationalist answer – which generally invokes Orthodox Christianity alongside a relatively recent ancestral connection to the lands that today constitute Greece – is distinctly modern, inflexible and constrained. Beaton’s work restores multiple identities to the Greeks, reflecting the depth and complexity of all that they have been over their long history.
As Seferis put it in that Nobel speech, the Greece of today is “a small country, but its tradition is immense”.
One of the greatest paradoxes of Greece, and arguably the trait most characteristic of it today, is this simultaneous humbleness and world-conquering ethos. Beaton is probably the only person alive who could manage with such subtlety and authority to convey it in one coherent volume.
---
Foreign Affairs
When people think of Greece, they generally think of the present-day nation-state, which they imagine as roughly conterminous with a narrowly bounded ancient society that had Athens and a few neighboring cities at its center.
In this magisterial yet readable introduction to Greek history—one of the best of its kind, whether for academic or popular audiences—Beaton reveals the far more complicated reality. Greece has always been a broadly settled civilization: Greeks have long lived in parts of present-day Bulgaria, Cyprus, Italy, Russia, Turkey, and countries of the Middle East.
In 1830, modern Greece gained its independence not via a popular ethnic revolution: most of its inhabitants spoke Albanian, and three times as many Greeks lived outside the country’s borders as did inside. Instead, Greek independence resulted from the work of warlords, outside powers, and generic Orthodox Christian opposition to Ottoman rule. The new state had to impose a sanitized version of the Greek language and a sense of national identity within its territory.
Many of contemporary Greece’s problems with its neighbors are rooted in past wars waged by the Greeks to assert that identity; others spring from its status as a small country subject to many indignities, only one of which is its financial tutelage under the European Union.
---
Displaying 1 - 30 of 145 reviews