Reading Herodotus: A Study of the Logoi in Book 5 of Herodotus'...

Features

• Cover Type: Hard Cover with 360 pages
• Published by: Cambridge University Press
• Edition: 1st Edition September 24, 2007
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 0521876303
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0521876308
• Book Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.3 x 1.1 inches
• Weighs: 1.6 pounds

Product Description
Reading Herodotus represents a new departure in Herodotean scholarship: it is the first multi-authored collection of scholarly essays to focus on a single book of Herodotus' Histories. Each chapter studies a separate logos in Book 5 and pursues two closely-related lines of enquiry: first, to propose an individual thesis about the political, historical, and cultural significance of the subjects that Herodotus treats in Book 5, and second, to analyze the connections and continuities between its logos and the overarching structure of Herodotus' narrative. This collection of twelve essays by internationally-renowned scholars represents an important contribution to existing scholarship on Herodotus and will serve as an essential research tool for all those interested in Book 5 of the Histories, the interpretation of Herodotean narrative, and the historiography of the Ionian Revolt.

Book Description
Twelve specially-commissioned essays by international experts focus on the historical and literary interpretation of Book 5 of Herodotus' Histories. Of interest to scholars and students working on Herodotus, as well as historians interested in the history of the Greek world in the late sixth and early fifth centuries BC.

Reader Reviews
This book is a disappointment. As someone who regularly re-reads Herodotus every few years, I have gained much by reading commentaries and essays alongside the text. However, the essays in this book are at best mildly insightful. Most are just rather dull and ultimately uninteresting. This is especially surprising given that some of these authors have produced very perceptive works in other contexts. I am a bit astonished that this is the best that some of the leading figures in classics can produce from this material. The book ends with an essay by John Henderson that I can most politely describe as a waste of paper. Its intentionally ungrammatical and (intentionally?) incoherent ramblings represent a direction in classical scholarship that I hope the field does not follow. Luckily, Herodotus' writings can still be enjoyed by us less sophisticated readers.