Neville Morley

Delightful, deceptively simple discourse on why it matters how we express our thoughts when writing about history and how we interpret the thoughts of others. Morley examines how tenuous the assumed connections can be among ‘facts’ and illuminates the power and the problem of narrative structure; the form of the content is, in fact, a rhetorical choice. A great pointer to Hayden White’s work on historical text as literary artifact. Discussion includes the limits of defining history, show more challenges of how to evaluate different interpretations of the same presented evidence, language choices and what our views regarding history’s purpose says about us.

While the book may have been aimed at students and post-grads, its message should be internalized by anyone writing history (of any era) with a mixed audience in mind. On a fun note, Thucydides gives good challenge to Herodotus for the Father of History title — everyone’s a critic. show less

This anthology of brief extracts from modern writers on ancient Greece and Rome is divided into two parts. One is based on themes such as slavery, or death and burial. The other is arranged by writer and is meant to illustrate each writer's approach to the subject.

On the whole I think the first part based on themes worked better. I found the second half difficult to follow except where I already had some knowledge of the writer's works.