These days it seems impossible to make a TV history program in which events can simply be described. Instead every point is underlined by images of actors in togas/ loin cloths/ cave man outfits, whatever seems appropriate. We can no longer be told that Julius Caesar invaded England without footage of men running around dressed as roman soldiers. This is the first book that I have read which is guilty of the same thing. Each chapter begins with a lengthy description of such-and-such a person surveying such-and-such a scene. In places this does help to bring the history to life, but often I found myself wishing that the author would just get on with it. I found this book to be like a lot of History Channel documentaries, interesting but frustrating. If the time invested setting the scene had been spent instead on telling the history a lot more ground might have been covered in a lot less time. For all that the battle of Salamis is very interesting, but I suspect that a better understanding might be gained through going directly to Strauss's principle sources Aeschylus, Plutarch and Herodotus.
Arrow, 364 pages
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