It was relatively late in life that I realised that knowing the archaeology and cultural history of my own country was not enough, and so I developed a strong urge to understand more of the Classical world. I now lead archaeology tours to Mediterranean lands such as Sicily, Crete and Albania, all shaped by Greek culture and peoples, with Plato describing the ubiquity of Greek colonies around that Sea as like frogs around a pond. In this excellent book McInerney sets out his stall with the following assertion - “Knowing the Greeks inculcates the historical consciousness that is a necessary part of living a thoughtful, engaged existence in the modern world”.
Here McInerney, who is Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, and a member of American School of Classical Studies at Athens, vividly presents the story of the Greek world from the Minoan and Mycenaean Bronze Age up to the Roman conquests. The book is simply divided into 13 chapters beginning with an insightful exploration of Minoan Crete, taking into account the most recent archaeological discoveries, presenting a credible narrative moving us well on from Evans’ visions from the early 20th century. Each chapter ends with a ‘Spotlight’, this one featuring the extraordinary images of everyday life revealed in the Theran frescoes found at Santorini.
Chapters on Mycenae, the Iron Age, Sparta in the Archaic Age, and Athens follow, the latter introducing the key subject of the foundations of democracy. This, like so much of the book, is a brilliant marriage of textual, archaeological and art historical evidence to produce an in depth picture of Athens in the 7th and 6th centuries BC. This leads into a chapter on the Greek’s wars with Persia around 500 BC, and why this became important for the emergence of the Greeks’ sense of a shared cultural identity. Further chapters follow including one on Religion and Philosophy, explaining the lay-out and functioning of temples, and how Greek life and culture was dominated by religion and by the ever-present role of the Gods in influencing everyday life. The book concludes with a chapter on the rise of Alexander and the Hellenistic Age, culminating in the expansion of the Roman Republic taking over the Greek territories.
This book will certainly appeal to undergraduates studying the Classical world, while also being of wide general interest. It is made highly accessible by the subdivision and subjects of sub-headings, with very many lovely illustrations, as you would expect from Thames and Hudson. In a salutary final comment McInerney reminding us that while one-time mighty political power is ultimately finite, culture endures.