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Early Greece
Now available in ebook format. Within the space of three centuries, up to the great Persian invasion of 480BC, Greece was transformed from a simple peasant society into a sophisticated civilisation which dominated the shores of the Mediterranean from Spain to Syria and from the Crimea to Egypt - a culture whose achievements in the fields of art, science, philosophy and politics were to establish the canons of the Western world. The author of this book places this development in the context of Mediterranean civilisation, providing an account of the transformation that launched Western culture.
320 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1980
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January 2, 2020Myth and reality combine. Politically the Persian Wars created a new race of heroes, who had surpassed the achievements of their ancestors before Troy: the self-confidence of the classical city-state, where man is the measure of all things was only one step short of arrogance (hybris), as the Greeks themselves knew. In that sense the Persian Wars opened a new epoch. But they also closed an old one. Greek culture had been created from the fruitful interchange between east and west; that debt was now forgotten. An iron curtain had descended... (p.279)
The line about the iron curtain put me in mind of an old film The 300 Spartans which I remember as showing the Persian Wars in the light of the Cold War. On the surface aligning the democracies of the 1960s with ancient Greece and the Persians hordes with communist ones was clearly too tempting on reflection the analogy is not entirely positive. Those Greek states which were democratic combined political freedom for some with various degrees of unfreedom for the rest. Sparta in particular, an inspiration to many then and later, with its terrorised Helot population comes across as a precursor of the kind of state that Nazi Germany wanted to create in eastern Europe as much as a defender of freedom.
Oswyn Murray's book, part of the Fontana history of the ancient world series, is a meditation on the sources of Greek history between the dark ages after the fall of the Mycenaean civilisation and the Persian Wars. Which is to say the exploration of the changing society from the aristocratic world of Homer to the later democracies (and other types of states) as it can be understood from the works of Herodotus, who Murray approves of despite the opinions of Thucydides on the Father of History , Thucydides himself , various fragmentary poets , inscriptions and archaeology with its all important pots recording the passage from Geometric to Orientalising period to the kind of thing that we think of as ancient Greek pottery .
For Murray Greece during this period was a crossing place fertilised by ideas and influences from different directions which gave birth to something new. Cuirasses from central Europe crossed with big shields from the near east produce Hoplite fighting, Egyptian monumental architecture, the idea of coins from Asia Minor all fed into the changing society. It follows then that for Murray the rise of Persia to dominance is a tragedy because it limits the diversity and interplay of influences in the eastern Mediterranean. In line with this idea of a whole cloth rather than a series of distinct and separate places it is noticeable that the figures of proverb, anecdote and legend like Midas, Gyges and Croesus were not themselves Greek. Persia, for Murray, took a pair of draper's scissors to that cloth.
This is an introduction to a fascinating topic, to societies that can be familiar and alien at the same time, at a period of time that with Greek colonisation around the Mediterranean and the Black seas was a sharp change in European history (and prehistory) that saw the rise of ideas that remain with us: Karl Jaspers described the first millennium BC as 'the axial age', around which the intellectual history of man has revolved ever since: Confucius, Buddha, Zoroaster, Isaiah, Anaximandros - man creates his own ideas, and must live with them (p237)
The line about the iron curtain put me in mind of an old film The 300 Spartans which I remember as showing the Persian Wars in the light of the Cold War. On the surface aligning the democracies of the 1960s with ancient Greece and the Persians hordes with communist ones was clearly too tempting on reflection the analogy is not entirely positive. Those Greek states which were democratic combined political freedom for some with various degrees of unfreedom for the rest. Sparta in particular, an inspiration to many then and later, with its terrorised Helot population comes across as a precursor of the kind of state that Nazi Germany wanted to create in eastern Europe as much as a defender of freedom.
Oswyn Murray's book, part of the Fontana history of the ancient world series, is a meditation on the sources of Greek history between the dark ages after the fall of the Mycenaean civilisation and the Persian Wars. Which is to say the exploration of the changing society from the aristocratic world of Homer to the later democracies (and other types of states) as it can be understood from the works of Herodotus, who Murray approves of despite the opinions of Thucydides on the Father of History , Thucydides himself , various fragmentary poets , inscriptions and archaeology with its all important pots recording the passage from Geometric to Orientalising period to the kind of thing that we think of as ancient Greek pottery .
For Murray Greece during this period was a crossing place fertilised by ideas and influences from different directions which gave birth to something new. Cuirasses from central Europe crossed with big shields from the near east produce Hoplite fighting, Egyptian monumental architecture, the idea of coins from Asia Minor all fed into the changing society. It follows then that for Murray the rise of Persia to dominance is a tragedy because it limits the diversity and interplay of influences in the eastern Mediterranean. In line with this idea of a whole cloth rather than a series of distinct and separate places it is noticeable that the figures of proverb, anecdote and legend like Midas, Gyges and Croesus were not themselves Greek. Persia, for Murray, took a pair of draper's scissors to that cloth.
This is an introduction to a fascinating topic, to societies that can be familiar and alien at the same time, at a period of time that with Greek colonisation around the Mediterranean and the Black seas was a sharp change in European history (and prehistory) that saw the rise of ideas that remain with us: Karl Jaspers described the first millennium BC as 'the axial age', around which the intellectual history of man has revolved ever since: Confucius, Buddha, Zoroaster, Isaiah, Anaximandros - man creates his own ideas, and must live with them (p237)
March 20, 2019
This is much more than an introduction to early Greek history: it is actually an excellent, concise but detailed, very informative and highly rewarding treatment of the development of the Greek civilization in the Archaic period, starting from the Mycenaean palace culture and ending with a quick treatment of the Persian wars.
Of excellent academic quality and methodologically polished, this book relies on all principal Greek sources (such as Homer, Hesiod, Herodotus and Thucydides) combined with many Near Eastern sources and much of the most relevant archaeological knowledge available at the book's publication time (being this second edition published in the 1993, some parts of the book may occasionally feel in need of update, but overall much of the book is still very relevant today).
When the author theses are contentious, or the available information is naturally prone to several alternative perspectives (such as, for example, the famous and never-ending controversy associated with the supposed “Dorian invasion” of the 11th-10th century BC), the author is generally quite honest in highlighting and discussing the most plausible alternative interpretations.
I also like the critical, but not overly dismissive, approach of the author towards the primary written sources which, while not being taken at face value, are used with intelligence and acumen to derive much relevant, highly plausible and interesting information about the period. After all, many modern historian have positively re-valuated the importance and reliability of authors such as Herodotus, whom have been much disparaged in the past.
The author's analysis of such sources as Homer (whose epic poems are highlighted to expose dim reflections of Mycenaean practices and more often a clearer portrayal of the societal customs of the Late Dark Age Greek world) is first-class; his interpretation of the ideological world behind Hesiod's “Theogony” is also excellent.
And due value and consideration are always given to the available archaeological evidence, even when such evidence is contradictory, ambiguous or in general not conclusive.
The archeological evidence is particularly intriguing in the case of Lefkandi (a coastal village on the island of Euboea), which delivered a unique series of findings attesting to a continuous human presence throughout the Bronze and Iron Ages, up to the beginning of the Archaic period; it therefore provides a very rare and precious example of continuity between the Mycenaean period and the Archaic period, somewhat illuminating the Greek Dark Ages, a period of radical and fundamental discontinuity. It would be marvelous if we could find another Lefkandi somewhere in Greece, which may help cast some further light onto this obscure period...
While the author manages almost miraculously to touch, within the constraints of such a relatively short book (less than 400 pages, including bibliography), on all the salient aspects of early Greek history, of particular value and interest is the author's treatment of the so-called “Orientalizing Age”, which has been historically undervalued by many historians, and incorrectly dismissed as derivative or at best just a period of transition.
It is actually this very book which really developed for the first time the concept of this period as an important and peculiar stage of the development of early Greek civilization, and it therefore deserve praise for his important contribution.
In fact such period (spanning the century between 750 and 650 BC) witnesses an intimate, important, fruitful contact between the Greek world and the more general Near-Eastern cultural context. This contact brought many profound changes to the the then relatively backward Greek societies, including but not limited to the alphabet, writing and language development, social customs such as the aristocratic symposium, new artistic traditions, trade practices, technology (iron smelting) and even a systematization of the Greek religious thought (the close affinity explored by the author between the Greek creation myths and the analogous myths created by the Hurrians, a pre-Hittite people, is quite fascinating).
We are not talking only about one-directional derivation of Near-Eastern elements, of course: we are talking about a period of fertilization and of brilliant, creative adaptation and innovation.
Extremely fascinating, and very well developed by the author, is the period of Greek colonization which, starting in 775 BC with the foundation of the trading post at Pithecusae (modern Ischia), and reaching its apogee in the period between 735 and 580 BC, saw an incredible period of expansion of the Hellenic cultural milieu in the Mediterranean basin as well as around the Black Sea.
I am personally particularly intrigued by the far-flung colonies/trading posts in places such as Naucratis in Egypt, Al Mina in Syria, Tartessus in Spain beyond the straits of Gibraltar, Crimea and the North Black Sea coast (I find it very fascinating that luxury Greek metalwork has been found in quantity in aristocratic Scythian burial mounds) and the Adriatic.
The only issue here is that the author has a somewhat “partisan” tendency to attribute with confidence the founding of some “cities” to Greek colonists even when this is somewhat contentious (like in the case of Al Mina) or most probably wrong (like in the case of Spina, which was most likely founded by the Etruscans and predominantly Etruscan, with an important presence of Greek traders).
On the other hand, I found it very important and refreshing that the author demystifies the incorrect conception of a primitive Archaic Greece economy essentially based only on a form of subsistence agriculture: the author convincingly demonstrates how Archaic Greece actually enjoyed a complex, diversified economy which included an assorted, multi-product agriculture, animal husbandry, trade, manufacturing of cloth, vases and metalwork, and with many items produced for export (both locally and internationally); moreover, all was supported by a relatively quite sophisticated trading network and advanced (for the times, of course) trading practices.
The military-political history of Archaic Greece is also well represented by the author, and amply discussed with nuance and competence in this rewarding book: the revolutionary military breakthrough represented by the new hoplite heavy-armed mass armies, developed in the mid 7th century BC, deeply changed the ancient world and is explored in great detail by the author.
The corresponding development of the hoplite citizen warrior class played a very important role in the formation of the archaic Spartan and Athenian constitutions, and ultimately paved the way in Athens to the later democratic institutions designed by the Kleisthenes reforms.
The important political and even cultural role played by the once-maligned tyrannies is also explored (after all, it was under the tyranny that monumental architecture emerged with the creation of the Doric temple), with particular focus on the powerful Peisistratidai and the Alkmeonidai of Athens. The period of the tyrants is correctly analysed by the author as the point of transition between the old aristocratic regime to the new forms of hoplite constitutions.
It is also intriguing how the old cultural values of the aristocratic period survived in many forms throughout the Archaic period, up to the Classical period.
The whole chapter on the fascinating and unique polity of Sparta is also very informative and enjoyable: it is interesting how Sparta, while officially being in appearance a very traditionalist and conservative polity, was in reality the most radical hoplite state of the period, fittingly defined by the author as a “pseudo-archaic society”, with its institutions radically transformed to suit a hoplite state, while officially maintaining its historical forms.
I do not have enough space to render justice to this important work; all I can say is that it is a must-read for anybody seriously interested in the history of Archaic Greece.
It does require some good previous exposure to the period, it is occasionally a bit too dense and it does contain a few mistakes (or at least contentious claims, not always highlighted as such), but overall it is a very informative and rewarding read. The book also provides a very handy timeline and a rich and useful bibliography, while the maps are unfortunately of average quality.
4.5 stars, rounded up to 5. Highly recommended as a rewarding read at intermediate level, but also to be kept for quick future reference.
Of excellent academic quality and methodologically polished, this book relies on all principal Greek sources (such as Homer, Hesiod, Herodotus and Thucydides) combined with many Near Eastern sources and much of the most relevant archaeological knowledge available at the book's publication time (being this second edition published in the 1993, some parts of the book may occasionally feel in need of update, but overall much of the book is still very relevant today).
When the author theses are contentious, or the available information is naturally prone to several alternative perspectives (such as, for example, the famous and never-ending controversy associated with the supposed “Dorian invasion” of the 11th-10th century BC), the author is generally quite honest in highlighting and discussing the most plausible alternative interpretations.
I also like the critical, but not overly dismissive, approach of the author towards the primary written sources which, while not being taken at face value, are used with intelligence and acumen to derive much relevant, highly plausible and interesting information about the period. After all, many modern historian have positively re-valuated the importance and reliability of authors such as Herodotus, whom have been much disparaged in the past.
The author's analysis of such sources as Homer (whose epic poems are highlighted to expose dim reflections of Mycenaean practices and more often a clearer portrayal of the societal customs of the Late Dark Age Greek world) is first-class; his interpretation of the ideological world behind Hesiod's “Theogony” is also excellent.
And due value and consideration are always given to the available archaeological evidence, even when such evidence is contradictory, ambiguous or in general not conclusive.
The archeological evidence is particularly intriguing in the case of Lefkandi (a coastal village on the island of Euboea), which delivered a unique series of findings attesting to a continuous human presence throughout the Bronze and Iron Ages, up to the beginning of the Archaic period; it therefore provides a very rare and precious example of continuity between the Mycenaean period and the Archaic period, somewhat illuminating the Greek Dark Ages, a period of radical and fundamental discontinuity. It would be marvelous if we could find another Lefkandi somewhere in Greece, which may help cast some further light onto this obscure period...
While the author manages almost miraculously to touch, within the constraints of such a relatively short book (less than 400 pages, including bibliography), on all the salient aspects of early Greek history, of particular value and interest is the author's treatment of the so-called “Orientalizing Age”, which has been historically undervalued by many historians, and incorrectly dismissed as derivative or at best just a period of transition.
It is actually this very book which really developed for the first time the concept of this period as an important and peculiar stage of the development of early Greek civilization, and it therefore deserve praise for his important contribution.
In fact such period (spanning the century between 750 and 650 BC) witnesses an intimate, important, fruitful contact between the Greek world and the more general Near-Eastern cultural context. This contact brought many profound changes to the the then relatively backward Greek societies, including but not limited to the alphabet, writing and language development, social customs such as the aristocratic symposium, new artistic traditions, trade practices, technology (iron smelting) and even a systematization of the Greek religious thought (the close affinity explored by the author between the Greek creation myths and the analogous myths created by the Hurrians, a pre-Hittite people, is quite fascinating).
We are not talking only about one-directional derivation of Near-Eastern elements, of course: we are talking about a period of fertilization and of brilliant, creative adaptation and innovation.
Extremely fascinating, and very well developed by the author, is the period of Greek colonization which, starting in 775 BC with the foundation of the trading post at Pithecusae (modern Ischia), and reaching its apogee in the period between 735 and 580 BC, saw an incredible period of expansion of the Hellenic cultural milieu in the Mediterranean basin as well as around the Black Sea.
I am personally particularly intrigued by the far-flung colonies/trading posts in places such as Naucratis in Egypt, Al Mina in Syria, Tartessus in Spain beyond the straits of Gibraltar, Crimea and the North Black Sea coast (I find it very fascinating that luxury Greek metalwork has been found in quantity in aristocratic Scythian burial mounds) and the Adriatic.
The only issue here is that the author has a somewhat “partisan” tendency to attribute with confidence the founding of some “cities” to Greek colonists even when this is somewhat contentious (like in the case of Al Mina) or most probably wrong (like in the case of Spina, which was most likely founded by the Etruscans and predominantly Etruscan, with an important presence of Greek traders).
On the other hand, I found it very important and refreshing that the author demystifies the incorrect conception of a primitive Archaic Greece economy essentially based only on a form of subsistence agriculture: the author convincingly demonstrates how Archaic Greece actually enjoyed a complex, diversified economy which included an assorted, multi-product agriculture, animal husbandry, trade, manufacturing of cloth, vases and metalwork, and with many items produced for export (both locally and internationally); moreover, all was supported by a relatively quite sophisticated trading network and advanced (for the times, of course) trading practices.
The military-political history of Archaic Greece is also well represented by the author, and amply discussed with nuance and competence in this rewarding book: the revolutionary military breakthrough represented by the new hoplite heavy-armed mass armies, developed in the mid 7th century BC, deeply changed the ancient world and is explored in great detail by the author.
The corresponding development of the hoplite citizen warrior class played a very important role in the formation of the archaic Spartan and Athenian constitutions, and ultimately paved the way in Athens to the later democratic institutions designed by the Kleisthenes reforms.
The important political and even cultural role played by the once-maligned tyrannies is also explored (after all, it was under the tyranny that monumental architecture emerged with the creation of the Doric temple), with particular focus on the powerful Peisistratidai and the Alkmeonidai of Athens. The period of the tyrants is correctly analysed by the author as the point of transition between the old aristocratic regime to the new forms of hoplite constitutions.
It is also intriguing how the old cultural values of the aristocratic period survived in many forms throughout the Archaic period, up to the Classical period.
The whole chapter on the fascinating and unique polity of Sparta is also very informative and enjoyable: it is interesting how Sparta, while officially being in appearance a very traditionalist and conservative polity, was in reality the most radical hoplite state of the period, fittingly defined by the author as a “pseudo-archaic society”, with its institutions radically transformed to suit a hoplite state, while officially maintaining its historical forms.
I do not have enough space to render justice to this important work; all I can say is that it is a must-read for anybody seriously interested in the history of Archaic Greece.
It does require some good previous exposure to the period, it is occasionally a bit too dense and it does contain a few mistakes (or at least contentious claims, not always highlighted as such), but overall it is a very informative and rewarding read. The book also provides a very handy timeline and a rich and useful bibliography, while the maps are unfortunately of average quality.
4.5 stars, rounded up to 5. Highly recommended as a rewarding read at intermediate level, but also to be kept for quick future reference.
September 25, 2021
Lo leí en español, pero la edición no aparece y me da mucha paja ponerme a agregarla.
April 5, 2013
Excellent, particularly on its account for an Orientalizing Age in Archaic Greek culture and its understanding of a period of particular aristocratic cultural prominence in the late 7th and 6th Centuries. Enjoyed the accounts of Hellenism far afield in Naucratis, Al Mina and Spain, just generally finding out about Greek interaction with the Near East pre-Persian Empire and the interesting distinction between the amateur poetry of Alcaeus and Sappho and the professional Symposium fare of Ibycus and Anacreon. Far from directly leading to 5th Century Classical Greece, the archaic age is full of interesting steps in the wrong direction, Sparta's early imperialism and the reign of Cleomenes I and Athens' tyranny and the power of its aristocracy. Murray gets very technical on the development of Sparta and Athens' constitutions under Lycurgus and Solon and those chapters necessarily a little messy but he comes to some interesting conclusions and manages to show how these two poleis developed their exceptional future character in very similar circumstances to every other Greek city. This is at this stage, easily the best book I've read on Classical history or on any history.
April 29, 2020
This was an excellent book on the history of the Greeks from the Mycenaean era through the victory over Persia in 479 B.C.E. Murray synthesizes the evidence from literary texts with archaeological discoveries, plus a healthy dose of common sense. When aspects of the history are not entirely clear, e.g. the development of democracy in Athens, Murray explains what the different sources say and offers his own eminently reasonable speculation on what might have really happened.
Instead of footnotes, each chapter has a bibliography with commentary, which I found very useful. At least in the first edition copy that I read, the illustration and maps, though helpful, left something to be desired. I know there is a second edition, so perhaps these are updated as well.
I really enjoyed this book and learned a lot about a subject on which I already knew something. I highly recommend it. And I came to love Oswyn Murray even more when I learned of his response to Boris Johnson's elevation to British Prime Minister. Johnson had been his student in classics, and Murray claimed he had been one of the worst he ever had. When Johnson entered 10 Downing Street, Murray sent him a "renunciatio amicitiae" (renunciation of friendship), in the tradition of the official documents the Roman emperors used to send to those who were about to be exiled.
Instead of footnotes, each chapter has a bibliography with commentary, which I found very useful. At least in the first edition copy that I read, the illustration and maps, though helpful, left something to be desired. I know there is a second edition, so perhaps these are updated as well.
I really enjoyed this book and learned a lot about a subject on which I already knew something. I highly recommend it. And I came to love Oswyn Murray even more when I learned of his response to Boris Johnson's elevation to British Prime Minister. Johnson had been his student in classics, and Murray claimed he had been one of the worst he ever had. When Johnson entered 10 Downing Street, Murray sent him a "renunciatio amicitiae" (renunciation of friendship), in the tradition of the official documents the Roman emperors used to send to those who were about to be exiled.
May 27, 2018
Dense, impressive history of "Archaic Greece," running from 900 BC (more or less) to the Greek victories the repelled the military forces of Persia under Darius* and Xerxes. Like many Greek scholars, the author assumes that Greek civilization was unquestionably the greatest that ever existed, which strikes me as a bit much, but this attitude rarely corrupts his analysis, in my opinion, anyway. This is not an "introduction" to Greek history. If you don't know what a hoplite is, I think you'll find this hard going. I earlier showed less enthusiasm for Robin Waterfield's attempt to cover the entire history of ancient Greece, which I've also reviewed for Good Reads. Focusing on a briefer period, I think, helped Murray, who does a particularly nice job of both explaining the Athenian constitution and putting it in historical perspective. Waterfield, on the other hand, did a better job with the Spartan constitution.
*I gave an Iranian woman I know a copy of Herodotus as a present. She'd never heard of him, of course, so I explained that the book was about Darius the Great. "Oh, Darioosh!" she said. So that's how you pronounce, in modern Farsi, at least.
*I gave an Iranian woman I know a copy of Herodotus as a present. She'd never heard of him, of course, so I explained that the book was about Darius the Great. "Oh, Darioosh!" she said. So that's how you pronounce, in modern Farsi, at least.
June 1, 2020
A detailed and well written history of pre-classical Greece from approximately 3000 BC up to the death of Pindar in 438 BC. It covers the Achaeans (Mycaene - think Agamemnon and the rest of the jolly crowd of the Iliad and Odyssey), the coming of the Dorians after a so called 'dark-age' (here come the Spartans) and the age of Homer (the archaic age) who immortalised the tales of the earliest Greeks. And here endeth 'early Greece'. Classical Greece followed the Persian Wars and became the catalyst for the development of Western Civilisation. There is a lot we still do not know or understand about the classical era let alone the early culture of the Greeks and those who came before them and from whom they learned so much. Fascinating. If it had not all happened, fiction would have had to invent it.
February 24, 2018
I decided to read "Early Greece" because I am very interested in Greek history and I thought it would be beneficial to learn a little more about the earlier history of the region...but to be honest...it was torture to get though! The information was great and the book was informative, but it was so dry that I would literally fall asleep after a page or two and zoned out during the majority of what I read. It took me four months to finally finish the book because I refused to give up on it. So, obviously, it is not ideal as a pleasure read...that being said, it would be great as a reference for college papers or research on early Greek society. It also has a great list of references and further readings on the topic.
April 12, 2023
A very detailed and academic book. I read it as a non scholar but this is good as I learnt so much and I hope to remember at least part of it. Not a holiday read but if this is your subject you are unlikely to find anything better.
October 5, 2024
Very good one volume summary of Ancient Greece, from the legends of Homer to the Persian war. I found the information in colonisation interesting as well as the tracing of developing political and philosophical thought.
August 11, 2025
Whilst at times dense due to the depth and meticulous nature of Murray’s method and inclusion of evidence, crucial information remained accessible and prominent. Murray creates flow through careful organisation and association; this was highly informative.
February 26, 2022
Somewhat outdated but overall enjoyable view of the early history of Greece. Great source for further reading.
Read
February 2, 2023W wydaniu polskim napisane bardzo przystępnym językiem. Przyjemne do czytania, ale obfite w informacje
March 19, 2023
6,5/10
May 25, 2023
An excellent introduction to the beginnings of Ancient Greek history and culture. Also contains a thorough bibliography.
Read
October 7, 2023A Oswyn Murray lo conocí gracias a la genial serie de Chris Marker L'heritage de la chouette. El trabajo de darle forma a semejante cantidad de información es admirable.
November 25, 2023
ciekawsza niż się spodziewałam
September 30, 2025
it's a hard but rewarding read on the history of early Greece.
February 2, 2019
Just a short review for Goodreads as I plan on writing something longer about this book for
Ancient World Magazine
in the near future.
Murray's Early Greece was old when I started studying the period it covers back in 2006. I was always a little surprised that this book from 1980 was on my reading lists when there were newer books covering similar things (principally James Whitley's The Archaeology of Ancient Greece , published 2000, but also Robin Osborne's Greece in the Making, 1200-479 B.C. , published 1996), although that's partially because I forgot about the 1993 edition. Still, Early Greece is well respected, and reading Tim Whitmarsh's Battling the Gods: Atheism in the Ancient World last year I noted that he still cited Murray as the book to read on the Archaic Period (ca. 700-479 BCE) of Greece. So, when I saw it in an Oxfam bookshop for £1.99 a few weeks later, I finally picked up a copy and resolved to read it cover-to-cover.
The first thing I realised is that Murray's approach is one I deeply respect and admire as an historian/archaeologist. On page 2, in the preface to the 1993 edition, Murray writes:
I don't recommend this book as anything other than a starting point for reading about Archaic Greece; I definitely don't recommend it over Jonathan Hall's A History of the Archaic Greek World, ca. 1200-479 BCE ; were I still teaching early Greece, I wouldn't set it as reading without heavy caveats and instructions to read further on any topic covered. His concept of an "Orientalizing Period" has given way to a more sophisticated understanding of the interactions between cultures, represented in a hefty-but-readable format by Cyprian Brookbank's The Making of the Middle Sea: A History of the Mediterranean from the Beginning to the Emergence of the Classical World . His chapter on "Warfare and the New Morality" is, I would argue, hopelessly outdated, and its conclusions are echoed throughout the book. Nevertheless, it is clear that Early Greece was a monumental work in 1980, that it remained significant throughout the 1990s, and has only in the last two decades become supplanted by more radical, more up-to-date work on the Archaic Period. An artefact, but an interesting one.
Murray's Early Greece was old when I started studying the period it covers back in 2006. I was always a little surprised that this book from 1980 was on my reading lists when there were newer books covering similar things (principally James Whitley's The Archaeology of Ancient Greece , published 2000, but also Robin Osborne's Greece in the Making, 1200-479 B.C. , published 1996), although that's partially because I forgot about the 1993 edition. Still, Early Greece is well respected, and reading Tim Whitmarsh's Battling the Gods: Atheism in the Ancient World last year I noted that he still cited Murray as the book to read on the Archaic Period (ca. 700-479 BCE) of Greece. So, when I saw it in an Oxfam bookshop for £1.99 a few weeks later, I finally picked up a copy and resolved to read it cover-to-cover.
The first thing I realised is that Murray's approach is one I deeply respect and admire as an historian/archaeologist. On page 2, in the preface to the 1993 edition, Murray writes:
“My aim was and remains to demonstrate that history is not a fixed narrative of facts, but a continuing effort to understand the past and the interconnections between events.”Throughout the book he regularly makes reference to alternative interpretations to his own, even if he is sometimes dismissive of them. He approaches the ancient texts not as repositories of factual information but as literary texts, whose approaches and sources must be understood and interrogated. I sometimes find him to be too credulous of certain accounts in those texts, but he is certainly part of the development of the more sceptical approach to ancient history, placing more reliance on archaeological evidence, that has become more normal in the decades since the publication of Early Greece. In the preface to the second edition, Murray worries about becoming the 'new orthodoxy', which I think it is safe to say he did, for a while.
I don't recommend this book as anything other than a starting point for reading about Archaic Greece; I definitely don't recommend it over Jonathan Hall's A History of the Archaic Greek World, ca. 1200-479 BCE ; were I still teaching early Greece, I wouldn't set it as reading without heavy caveats and instructions to read further on any topic covered. His concept of an "Orientalizing Period" has given way to a more sophisticated understanding of the interactions between cultures, represented in a hefty-but-readable format by Cyprian Brookbank's The Making of the Middle Sea: A History of the Mediterranean from the Beginning to the Emergence of the Classical World . His chapter on "Warfare and the New Morality" is, I would argue, hopelessly outdated, and its conclusions are echoed throughout the book. Nevertheless, it is clear that Early Greece was a monumental work in 1980, that it remained significant throughout the 1990s, and has only in the last two decades become supplanted by more radical, more up-to-date work on the Archaic Period. An artefact, but an interesting one.
February 23, 2011
Good book, but very dense and at times a struggle to get through. Absolutely love the bibliography.
April 5, 2017
A good introduction to the period between the Mycenaen and Classical period.
April 30, 2012
It is a good book if you use it as a reference for other books. I found trying to read this one a struggle at times.
August 24, 2016
Leí dos capítulos para la facultad.
Y mi reading challenge está muriendo lentamente.
Así que lo leí.
Sh.
Y mi reading challenge está muriendo lentamente.
Así que lo leí.
Sh.
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews