The Histories: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.