The Rise of the Greeks

I read the Barnes & Noble reprint of this major work on the pre-classical history of the Greeks. Originally published in the UK by Phoenix Press, a division of Orion Books, in 1987, this is an extensive and detailed work written in Grant's usual clear, readable style. Phoenix reissued the book in 2001. By taking a geographical and ethnic approach, Grant gives overlapping views of the people we now know as the Greeks, from their various cultural aspects. Grant covers the interaction of the tribes of the Greeks, from the earliest writings, in interaction with the others they interacted with. Grant covers the political, military, religious, linguistic artistic and social spheres in each of the regions and major city-states in each era. It was especially helpful to get the information on the formative states of the Greek sub-groups and the other ethnicities they lived with, intermarried with, fought and absorbed. Grant probes the known facts and likely clues to draw a picture of the ethnic and political landscape of the period 1000-500 BC. Grant provides the derivations and possible meanings of early names for peoples and places. Grant paints an ethnic tapestry of the whole world of the Middle East, Northern Africa and the Mediterranean. He relates known information about the Greeks in their pre-history and early classical foundations to the writings of the Middle Eastern cultures and literature, including the Hebrew writings in the Bible. He deals with details of culture worldview in the mythological and early philosophical, or scientific, writings of ancient authors. He analyzes influences of the ancient Sumerian and Semitic, as well as Hurrian-Hittite creation myths on the early Greek mythological writings.

"The Rise of the Greeks" by Michael Grant is a very good look at the period of history of the Greek City states from around 1000 to 500 BC. This is a period of history for which it is hard to find good sources of information, and this is certainly the best book that I have found on the period. Michael Grant does a good job of pulling together information from the various sources. Nor is this book limited to just a one or two city states. The author does a commendable job of looking at many different city states, although as he talks about in his introduction, it would be impossible to cover the hundreds that existed.One area that could have been better would have been the maps. Yes there are some provided, but there could have been more, and they could have been placed better and notated to aid the reader in following the descriptions in the text. On the whole though, this is a very good book, and the author does a good job of relating what was going on in each of these areas during that time period. The book also includes chronological tables, and a bibliography, both of which are of use to the reader in understanding the timing of the events of the period, and finding additional references.