Earn The Greeks (Penguin History) Created By H. Kitto Kindle

lively writing by a sassy Englishman, Kitto makes every aspect of Greek culture accessible and relevant, The Greeks were obsessed with the idea of natural unity and wholeness, It was the duty of every Athenian to be soldier, politician, family member, and stock holder, A Greek man was not a man at all if he neglected any aspect of his physical, mental, spiritual, or moral being.
Everything he does strives for virtue and honour for the greater good of the polis, This is not to say that the Greeks celebrated excess, There is a beauty is how they focus and control their energy, as evidenced in their strong yet minimal architecture and bare bones conception of drama.


Starting with the Dorian Invasion and covering the Trojan Homeric, Persian All of Greece on the Defensive, and Peloponnesian Wars Athens v.
Sparta up until the eventual conquests of Alexander, it's actually a quick read, It's of a thematic collection of essays that roughly corresponds to the timeline of three main wars, The meat of the classical history is presented in an excellent adaption of the Greek historians in Chapters, The Fifth Century, The Greeks At War, and The Decline of the Polis, respectively.
All three Chapters taken together show nearly the full arc of Athenian Democracy its rise to a free and prosperous society of modern proportions and subsequent decay in only one sitting.


Chapteron the Greek Mind presents a fantastic picture of the rationality and passion present in all aspects of Greek life.
From war, civil life, and politics, to art, science, and philosophy, the Greeks reinvented it all through careful balance, They fostered a sense of unity in themselves and evolved a totally new conception of what human life was for.
Likewise, Kitto produced a self contained and vibrant history, The book functions as a unified whole on every level, Its very essence is Greek, One of the best ways to read about Greek history is by taking the tour with a classicist, not a historian.
Kittos prose makes this book a joy to read, and is sprinkled throughout with references and quotes from classical authors.
Additionally, Kittos enthusiasm for Greek history and culture is clearly evident in his writing, This is the type of book that fires the imagination and leads the reader to explore this area deeply through further reading in the classics, history, and archeology.
In one of the fascinating parts of the book, Kitto engagingly explains what the polis was, as well as how the Greeks saw it and what it meant to them.
He also contrasts the Greek view of the polis with a modern view of our cities, The book was first published in, and Kitto makes some references to World War II, as well as some dated references to British society at that time, but this in no way detracts from the overall excellence of this work.
On the back of my copy of Kitto's book, there is a quote from Raymond Mortimer declaring this volume to be the best introduction to Ancient Greece he had ever read.
I'm not sure if I can go that far with regard to this book perhaps in, when it first came out, that accolade would have been appropriate.
However, just because I can't declare this book to be the best unreservedly, I still consider it to be an excellent text, and one that I have very useful in my upper level undergraduate course in Ancient Greek philosophy.


Kitto has relatively short chapters on a host of subjects, including origins, culture, warfare, political life, philosophy, art, and.
These are arranged according to certain major facets of Greek life that we know for example, Homer gets a chapter to himself.
However, Homer neither arose in a vacuum nor did his work only matter during his or her time, Kitto doesn't address too much about the academic controversy over who Homer might have been, but rather addresses the work that we have which survives.
That work includes an exploration of the direct and indirect influences on later generations of Greeks, who in turn have had profound impact on our own culture.


Kitto spends a good deal of time on the political structure of Greek life, from the early settlement and migration times, to development of small polities, to larger hegemonic times and the Athenian empire, brief lived though it was.
One question I ask my class to address out of Kitto's text is this Sparta seems to have won the war, but Athens won the peace what does this mean Kitto gives a lot of insight into the competition between Athens and Sparta, and to a lesser extent other polities around the Aegean and

off toward Italy there were unified times in the face of Persian aggression, but often there were less organized times, which allowed for a kind of international relations in microcosmic form.
I once had a professor who longed to teach a modern international relations course using nothing but Herodotus and Thucydides one reading Kitto can get the sense that there are many truths in this desire, given that many of the motivations of nations and many of the principles of politics among nations remain the same as can be found in the speeches recounted in Thucydides' writing.


Kitto clearly has a deep love of the ancient Greek culture, and parallels much of his own time with this period he is also quick to point out the differences.
This is perhaps the one weakness of this text, If one lacks a familiarity with Britain and British sensibilities and learning in the first half of the twentieth century, one may lose some of the references Kitto makes for example, he makes reference to the Sophists as being akin to those who might host a seminar, Did You Want to be aGBP Man' the answer would be a resounding no today he also alludes to our political parties' which are clearly different from those today and for those in North America, one might have really no hook upon which to hang understanding.


On the other hand, some things haven't changed, He also says of the Sophists that Perhaps "Professor" would be a rough modern equivalent to "Sophist", ' A challenge to remember, indeed! This is certainly something my students can understand, He also uses colourful stories such as Diogenes calling to both the perfumed set and what would be the Greek grunge set, Affectation!' He also pulls from Herodotus the disappointment of Croesus at finding out that Tellus, Cleopas and Biton led happier lives than he but alas, that they were dead, too.
There are many pieces that stick with one upon reading, and because this text does not go overboard in information, it fits together in a easily grasped framework, too.


One might challenge Kitto's assertion that the Greeks were as superior as they are presented unless our standards of civilization are comfort and contraptions, Athens from saytowas clearly the most civilized society that has yet existed.
' However, there is no doubt that the Greeks advanced in directions hitherto unknown and rarely exceeded in a measure by measure analysis.
This comes through with Kitto a worthy text for a worthy subject, I bought this before taking a guided tour of Greece, It was helpful. It digs a little deeper than what is taught in high school, The Greeks and all of western people are different, This book will help you learn why that is, it gets a bit heavy to read in places, If like myself you watched a movie that made you want to learn about the lifestyles and cultures of the Ancient Greeks, Kitto's book is just the primer you need.
' Weighing in atpages, this is a concise overview of everything you need to know about the Greeks up to, but not including Alexander.
The author felt Alexander deserved than a couple of scribbled passages at the end of the book, which is what most other books do apparently.


This was an enjoyably light read, without being a lightweight on the information, The dull, dreary boring minutiae was left in favour of a style that can be enjoyed by the novice to the classics, of which I still classify myself.
Certainly something that has inspired my interests in the Greeks enough to want to learn,

I particularly enjoyed the part that said clearly any one slighted would openly seek revenge through the courts, none of that turn the other cheek malarkey and very frowned upon in this day and age.
Very good as an introduction to the Ancient Greeks, taking us up until the time of Alexander the Great, Only three simply because the number of typos in the Kindle edition is very close to totally unacceptable, Was initially curious as to find out a bit on ancient civilisations, and having already understood that Greece represented the fundamental basis of Western education democracy, having previously read work by acclaimed historian, Tom Holland on the subject,thought Id have a look.

Its crammed with information but unfortunately, I struggled to follow some of the chapters, as the author tends to waffle a great deal, often shifting his attention and losing the narrative of what hes trying to assess in the process.
Its also written in a style that reflects attitudes of Britain in thes, though bearing in mind, as this is when it was originally published.
I bought the paperback when I was in the U, K. but wanted to buy the kindle edition too for when I was on the move, The book itself is hands down one of the best introductions to Ancient Greece, The Kindle edition, unfortunately, has too many errors! If you want to read the original, I recommend buying the paperback.
If you want to understand the Greeks of history, and why Greece is rightly if cliche edly referred to as the cradle of democracy, read The Greeks! Yes, the language is a bit old fashioned and and yes the idea of Greek exceptionalism is probably elitist by modern standards, but this book is part of the Western canon for good reason.
It is also a real pleasure to read! The author is was , a gifted and dedicated academic, I believe this was first published in the earlys and the style is very different from an equivalent book that would be published today.
If you want quick facts to dip into, this is not the book for you but if you want to understand the whole context of Greek civilisation, it is a brilliant and illuminating read.
Not one I suspect for the Twitter generation, The Greeks were extraordinary not least because they evolved a totally new conception of what human life was for, Elaborating on that claim, the author explores the life, culture and history of classical Greece, .