The Muse of History

Reviews / Votes

In this erudite and elegant book, Oswyn Murray examines how the history of Greece has been written from the Enlightenment to our own dark time. He follows historians as they travel, to explore Greek sites or to flee persecution; he examines scholarly traditions and institutions as they take shape; he catches new and powerful theses as they crystallize. Above all, he reveals the historians themselves, in all their complex humanity. It's a marvellous story, full of life and told with wit and warmth -- Anthony Grafton, author of Magus Oswyn Murray, a foremost historian of western antiquity, here combines trenchant historiographical analysis with biographical snapshots of a host of colourful and innovative classical scholars, many of whom he knew personally. The Muse of History is written with passion, wit, and the firm conviction that ancient history always has, and always will, be of great importance and interest to us all -- Suzanne Marchand, author of Porcelain: A History from the Heart of Europe Our greatest historian of archaic and classical Greece traces the formation and development of Ancient History amidst the often tragic events of post-Enlightenment Europe. A profound, inspiring and deeply personal book -- Paul Kosmin, author of Time and its Adversaries in the Seleucid Empire This is intellectual history at its best, amply demonstrating how modern authors, famous and forgotten alike, repeatedly and dynamically recast the ancient foundations on which the ideals and the very idea of Western civilization have continued to be constructed -- Kenneth Lapatin, Curator of Antiquities, The Paul J. Getty Museum A quietly amazing book, written with an elegance and insight worthy of his mentor Arnaldo Momigliano -- Nino Luraghi, Wykeham Professor of Greek History, University of Oxford The Muse of History is a magisterial and deeply humane testament to the virtues of intellectual open-mindedness, studded with personal anecdotes from a lifetime of scholarship ... characterised by a salutary breadth of vision and a welcome hostility to the often unexamined assumptions of Anglo-Saxon empiricism -- Henry Day * Literary Review * Fascinating ... no other historian can match this achievement; no other war, or for that matter no other historical subject, is so much the product of its reporter -- Oliver Webb-Carter * Aspects of History * Majestic ... enthalling ... places centre-stage the multifarious evaluations and (mis)understandings of Athenian democracy that have marched in tandem with our own history since the Enlightenment [and] reveals Murray's unwavering commitment to the need for history to continue to be written ... no other practitioner of the discipline has ever reflected with such synoptic intensity on the relationship between real-world contemporary historical developments -- Edith Hall * BBC History Magazine * Both elegant and outspoken ... It has long been one of Murray's priorities to liberate the Republic of of Letters, or at least the Republic of History, from the constraints of national or linguistic boundaries. His new book is part autobiographical memoir, part analysis of how the subject of ancient Greek history has changed since the eighteenth century, and part manifesto for classical history and the study of history more generally ... A masterclass [from] one of the most thoughtful ancient historians in Britain over more than half a century. -- Mary Beard * Times Literary Supplement * The Muse of History by classicist Oswyn Murray takes as its conceit the Ancient Greeks as the inspiration for Western historical thought since the Enlightenment. Perhaps unfashionable in some quarters of academia, the book is a joy to read, thought-provoking and amusing. It's a lifetime of work but provides a wealth of education for a dullard like me -- Oliver Webb-Carter * Aspects of History, Books of the Year *