Greece in the Making, 1200-479 Bc : From the Dark Ages to the Persian Wars

Shows how we can write the history of this period, and the insights which can be gained by doing so for our understanding of later periods of history.The archaic Greek world was the world in which Homer's Iliad and Odyssey were composed, in which the Doric and Ionic orders of architecture were conceived, in which athletic competition first became a cultural event and in which democracy was conceived.The latest volume in the Routledge History of the Ancient World succeeds in creating a history of Greece in a period which is, strictly, pre-historic. No Greek writer ever attempted to describe or analyse the events of his own lifetime or of the immediate past until Herodotus and Thucydides. Our knowledge of Greece before 479 B.C. is dependent on the stories which the later Greeks told about their past and the indirect testimony of the material and poetic monuments of the archaic age.Greece in the Making 1200-479 B.C. shows how we can write the history of this period, and the insights which can be gained by doing so for our understanding of later periods of history. It goes beyond tradition and exploits the literature, art, and archaeology of the period. Richly illustrated, this book makes much new information readily accessible and puts the reader in touch with the latest scholarship on the subject.