The Greeks: A Portrait of Self and Others

By Paul Anthony Cartledge

Book Overview

Who were the Classical Greeks? This book provides an original and challenging answer by exploring how Greeks (adult, male, citizen) defined themselves in opposition to a whole series of others (non-Greeks, women, slaves, non-citizens, and gods) as presented by supposedly objective historians of the time such as Herodotus, Thucydides, and Xenophon. Cartledge looks at the achievements and legacy of the Greeks - history, democracy, philosophy and theatre - and the mental and material contexts of these inventions which are often deeply alien to our own way of thinking and acting. This new edition contains an updated bibliography, a new chapter entitled "Entr'acte: Others in Images and Images of Others," and a new afterword.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0192803883
• ISBN13: 9780192803887
• Release Date: December 2002
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.56 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.0" x 7.9"

Customer Reviews

Putting the Record Straight

This book is a set text on the MA in Classical Studies I am currently doing. It is certainly not an easy book (though his writing style is invigorating) and if you are looking for a text book merely eulogizing the Greeks then this is not the book for you. Cartledge sets out to examine the Greeks in terms of their culture and legacy under a number of headings and does it by examining each heading eg. Women, Slavery etc in terms of its exact opposite and its negative aspects as well as its positive ones. The chapter on Slavery is particularly good. It must be remembered that Cartledge is an academic, writing for academics and students taking various classic courses. This is not really a book for the general public. But if you have some interest or knowledge about Ancient Greece and want to find out more, then I can thoroughly recommend this book.