The Histories: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)

The translation made reading easy and engaging. The book included maps, a glossary, and other helpful tools to better understand the world that Herodotus lived in--and his amazing recording of history.

This book was written with the "greatest Historian of All Time", Herodotus in the 5th Century BC. Yes that old, but so rich in the greatest detail it is amazing. I would agree that he WAS the greatest Historian that ever wrote. I will NOT give away the content, but if you want to read what really happened in the days of the great Kings with as said the most unimaginable detail then this is for you. It is not recent history for those who did not read what I wrote above then get another History book! I urge everyone to read this book. I was sitting in a doctor's lounge talking to a young teenager about this tome and a man sitting near us said "I am an Archaeologist and found elephant dung on the peaks of the Swiss Alps" which could only have come from Hannibal's trek to annihilate the Greeks! His accounts are true, other Historians have born this out. Buy it and you might even be amazed at man's early quest to dominate with ancient wars and other stories that have amazed me!

I am really enjoying this book. It is written in clear, sometimes ironic, sometimes tongue-in-cheek, always exciting prose. Also has some English spelling(!) which I enjoy. My brother got me interested in Ancient Greece. Started me off with the 'Battle of Salamis', which was great, then I found 'Song of Wrath', and now Herodotus. I have just got to the Battle of Thermopylae. After that will come Salamis, and then Xerxes will go home in defeat after one final battle. It seemed a life of perpetual choices: at any time My enemy is my enemy, My Friend is my enemy, My Family is my enemy. Trust no one, or very few. The way the various Greek cities lived, their constant conflicts, the quite amazing brutality of the time. The "time" is interesting too, having to keep it in perspective as one has to count backwards towards AD. Keeping all the kings straight is a bit difficult as their offspring were named after their fathers, with no I, II, III, etc. following the name. I must admit to skipping occasional paragraphs that contained just names. The maps (13 of them) are great. It was easy to trace Xerxes path of his military and his navy from beginning to end, a very long campaign to exterminate Athens. The list of maps helped a lot as it listed the map on which the individual cities appear. The first map on The 'World According to Herodotus' is fascinating. I compared it to a current atlas and it shows how much was known up to a point, then became just ocean. The Introduction is very interesting and useful as are all the other notes that make up the 834 pages. It reads like sitting down for story-telling time with an elderly relative. I recommend it highly.

I'm not going to try to convince you to read Herodotus. I assume you've decided to read Herodotus already, and need some help distinguishing between translations. I used to read Greek kind of OK, but would never have gotten through all of Herodotus to read it for pleasure with the Greek that I had. Holland's translation is very colloquial British English. It is as if the stories in the Histories are being told by an Economist columnist, as opposed to a Greek inventing an entirely new style of storytelling. It's a little bit distracting at first, but it does drive the story forward. It's talky (as the introduction points out, this would be in keeping with how the Histories would have been presented, in public lectures). And it is a pleasure. Although it is not as if the other (newer) translations are lacking for readability. Grene's translation in the University of Chicago edition is perhasp the most difficult. Grene's is written in a bracing straightforward American prose, but it seems to conceal less the sort of paradoxical (to modern readers) cast of mind of an ancient Greek author. Grene is also closer to the Greek on a sentence-by-sentence level, which also helps a student of historiography or political theory keep closer tabs on how Herodotus organizes his thoughts in prose. The Landmark Herodotus, translated by Purvis, is easier to read than Grene, probably more natural for an American audience than Holland. What sets the Landmark apart is the editorial apparatus. A clean yet detailed map of stark line drawings is never far away in the print edition. Most often, the map will have a detailed view with a locator putting the map in context, and sometimes a third layer with yet more detail. The appendices helpfully illustrate what things are like on the battlefield for the soldiers, provide easy references for how different societies were organized (which would otherwise require a spaghetti-noodle coil of references to different passages in Herodotus, also helpfully supplied). The trouble is that I have no idea how good the Kindle version is, and it would be difficult to translate the large-page layout onto a small Kindle screen in any case, so I suspect poorly. And make no mistake, the Landmark version is large, so it is trouble to read in bed, and really difficult to read in a bathtub (both of which I have tried.) Another reviewer helpfully points out that the Holland Herodotus has all of the editorial apparatus helpfully linked on the page in the Kindle edition. The maps aren't big enough in the Kindle edition to provide much help, although Herodotus's storytelling isn't enhanced by maps the way Thucydides's is.

I first read "The Histories" while in grad school, somewhere close to the half century ago. This is a superior version for several reasons. First, the translation is smoothly done and results in easy reading with no awkward phrasing. Second, the footnotes (located in the back in the paperback version) are a useful commentary and provide some clarity. I was spurred to re-read this because of the discovery of a ship described by Herodotus heretofore not seen before and the footnotes pointed at other research that corroborated, sometimes only mildly, some of what he wrote. You do not have to be an historian to enjoy this - anyone interested in the early history of the Mediterranean peoples or a picture of the Persians a bit more objective than the movie "300" will find this a very good translation and an excellent read.

This is history as written by the first historian. While not absolutely correct in many instances, it gives a look at what scholars in ancient Greece thought about the world and its history before 425 BC. Fascinating reading for anyone who likes history.

So far so good

I've meant to tackle this beast since High school and have avoided doing so until this version. Tom Holland is a master, and brought this work to life for me. It's an important view of the world, many views of the world, from an ancient source, but always fresh and relevant. In so many ways so little has changed. From our love of tall tales to the causes of pointless warfare. Herodotus was not just the first historian he was also devotedly anthropological. And while he swallows a great many goofball ideas -- Cows that feed walking backwards because their horns are too large to allow them to walk forward! -- he is nonetheless a necessary study for any student of humanity or culture. Grab this copy even just for it's excellent cover art and how it will look on your shelf!

The hardback edition is quite a large book (it's 51mm thick, 160mm wide and 242mm high) but this also makes the type easier to read for those of us confounded by the microtype of small paperbacks. I started reading a copy in Barnes and Noble while on holiday in the US and couldn't put it down so I ordered it for delivery when I got home. Oddly the US edition has a far more attractive orange and black cover design featuring a Greek and Persian fighting (as well as possessing a dustjacket) so it is a shame the UK edition is so drab by comparison with a dreary grey cover featuring just a couple of partial hoplites popping over the edges. I wish I’d bought my copy in the US. Unlike so many translations of ancient texts this has been written in the lively, readable, and entertaining spirit of the original rather than feeling a need to produce a literal translation. Purists will prefer the latter; those after a gratifying and absorbing read will prefer the former. So, for example the Persians 'kept on badgering him [Croesus] until he told them about Solon' (p. 44) and 'The Scythians had no idea what had hit them' (p. 302). I've no doubt the translator will be cursed by some Greek pedants for being overly 'free' in his version of the text, and it is worth bearing in mind that English translations vary wildly. In 1890 G.C. Macaulay provided this for the last part of Book I.20, '... sending a messenger told Thrasybulos [sic] in order that he might have knowledge of it beforehand and take such counsel as the case required'. Aubrey de Sélincourt's 1954 translation for Penguin gives, '...had thereupon sent to tell Thrasybulus all about it, knowing that to be forewarned is forearmed'. Holland has '... promptly sent a messenger to his friend, letting him in on the secret. Intelligence is, after all, always the key to forward planning'. De Sélincourt's words move it on a bit but I'd say the Macaulay is truer to the exact wording of the Greek. Holland turns the sentence into two and the result is quite different and really far more of a paraphrase though the underlying meaning of course remains. The real question is whether there is more of Holland in this sort of phrasing than there is of Herodotus. There is much that could be debated about this sort of approach. Macaulay has 'The Scythians meanwhile were not able to understand the matter' (IV.111). De Sélincourt's version is very similar, whereas Holland has 'The Scythians had no idea what had hit them'. The Greek very definitely doesn't 'say' literally what Holland says; a fairly literal translation would be something approximating to ‘the Scythians did not have a conjecture on the matter’. Macaulay’s version is more easily understood as a better way of rendering the literal Greek into English; Holland takes the essence of the meaning and supplies a vernacular modern English phrase – whether it goes beyond what the Greek actually says is a moot point, but it certainly makes it more readable for a modern audience. In large part the appeal of this text is Holland’s contemporary prose and in that sense it is an original work in its own right. So long as the reader appreciates this he or she will not be disappointed. There is ample introductory material by Paul Cartledge as well as maps, extensive footnotes and a Glossary Index which makes for a good browse but can be rather indigestible. Greece, for example, has 2.5 pages of entries in the order they appear in the book which might confound a reader trying to find something specific. Under Herodotus there are a number of sub-headings such as ‘considers miraculous’ which is an unlikely category a reader would start off by looking for even if it is then fun to pursue the entries. Overall, this is an excellent read. It provides a modern audience with an entertaining and absorbing version of Herodotus’ reckless and undisciplined stream of consciousness that provides an unmatched tour of his epic world just a few centuries before the Roman Empire turned Greece into a backwater.

Thank you it’s great

O autor declarou, ao escrever o livro, que era seu propósito “preservar da decadência a lembrança do que os homens fizeram”, e “prevenir as grandes ações dos Gregos e Bárbaros de perderem a sua merecida glória”. A parte final de seu livro cumpriu o propósito; ela nos dá um relato completo e objetivo da luta titânica entre a Pérsia e a Grécia como foi possível para este historiador pioneiro. Com relação a parte inicial, ainda que nos proporcione um grande clímax, é na realidade uma história universal cultural, misturando fatos, anedotas, e mitos, de todo o mundo conhecido durante o período imediato precedente e contemporâneo ao próprio período de Heródoto. De maneira, às vezes, confusa ou encantadora, ele mistura nesta parte jornalismo, geografia, antropologia, fábulas, contos de viajantes, “filosofias e moralização de mercado”. Embora escreva em prosa e sobre eventos reais, em vez de lendas, ele está mais próximo de Homero e da arte, em vez da narrativa histórica moderna também chamada de história científica. Um antigo crítico romano – Quintiliano – disse que Heródoto era “prazeroso, lúcido, difuso”; três adjetivos precisos. Assim posto, o leitor iniciante não deve procurar nele uma clara narrativa histórica das Guerras entre gregos e persas; pelo contrário, o leitor deve ler o livro em longas “goladas”, sem estar muito atento aos fatos históricos. O livro deve ser lido pelas estórias, pelas digressões, pelas descrições dos personagens, e pelas estranhas e fantásticas informações sobre os hábitos e costumes de dúzias de povos antigos. Também deve ser lido pelo prazer de encontrar o próprio Heródoto – algumas vezes crédulo, outras cético, mas sempre humano, bem-humorado, curioso e civilizado. Não se preocupe muito sobre quem é quem e o que está lá. A absorção de fatos específicos é menos importante que a sua ampla imersão no largo, cheio e “flutuante” rio heródoteano da narrativa

Esta traducción de Tom Holland es genial, muy fácil de leer para cualquiera. La obra en sí es una maravilla, amena, divertida, y muy informativa, no se la pierdan.

Ein gutes Buch für diejenigen, die sich auch über die Geschichte anderer Länder informieren wollen