The Essential Greek Historians

Reviews / Votes

"How best to introduce students and general readers to the foundational works of ancient Greek historiography? Is it better to assign the entirety of one or two major authors, or to provide a broader sampling of excerpted material from many writers? At last, Stanley Burstein has resolved the dilemma. His new compendium, The Essential Greek Historians, offers the most effective and efficient solution so far. The key is multi-layered contextualization. The book begins with an Introduction to Greek historiography that is rich, readable, and reliable. It distills a master teacher's lifetime of study into the one essay every student should read on the subject.
"Each one of the eight works to be sampled here is discussed in relation to the others, taking us from Herodotus and his precursors to Plutarch. Then, each excerpt is further contextualized within its own work. Explanatory notes provide additional connective tissue, leaving readers with the sense-and satisfaction-of encountering and absorbing the entire foundational text. This book, the kind of problem-fixing tool every teacher needs today, will become required reading in ancient history courses. For those outside academia who are self-instructors in ancient studies, this is the place to begin your exploration of the ancient Greeks."
-Frank Holt, University of Houston "With The Essential Greek Historians, Stanley M. Burstein delivers an updated anthology of ancient Greek historical authors from Herodotus to Plutarch, a span of over 500 years. The selected passages are well chosen and accompanied by editorial comments from an eminent historian of the ancient world. The inclusion of some 'non-canonical' historical works (the Aristotelian Constitution of Athens, The Parian Marble, and Memnon of Heraclea) significantly broadens the scope while maintaining a focus on the Greeks' attitude toward the past. The volume will be very useful for courses in Greek history and will replace Finley's venerable anthology."
-Christopher Baron, University of Notre Dame "With up-to-date translations of a wide range of ancient historical writing and student-friendly supplementary materials, Burstein's The Essential Greek Historians should be warmly welcomed by students and teachers alike. It is an ideal introduction to ancient Greek historiography."
-Bill Beck, Indiana University "As a teaching tool [this book] is outstanding, moving beyond the traditional reading list into sources and topics that students should encounter as they explore Greek history, but rarely do. This volume should be essential reading in every undergraduate survey of Greek history."
-Duane W. Roller, The Ohio State University, in The Classical Outlook "Stanley Burstein's The Essential Greek Historians provides students with an unintimidating introduction to the core of Greek historiography: well-considered extracts from Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, Aristotle, Polybius, Menon and Plutarch, plus the Parian marble. All translations have been chosen for readability, and Burstein himself has translated the last-mentioned. Maps, a well-measured Introduction full of insight, buttressed by short editorial prefaces to each chapter and explanatory footnotes round out the texts. . . . [This book] does admirably what it sets out to do."
-Ancient West and East