Robert S. Garland
Author of The Other Side of History: Daily Life in the Ancient World
About the Author
Works by Robert S. Garland
Athens Burning: The Persian Invasion of Greece and the Evacuation of Attica (Witness to Ancient History) (2017) 25 copies
Wandering Greeks: The Ancient Greek Diaspora from the Age of Homer to the Death of Alexander the Great (1743) 21 copies
Associated Works
The Oxford Handbook of Childhood and Education in the Classical World (2014) — Contributor — 15 copies
Poetry, Theory, Praxis. The Social Life of Myth, Word and Image in Ancient Greece: Essays in Honour of William J.… (2003) — Contributor — 2 copies
Religion and Power in the Ancient Greek World: Proceedings of the Uppsala Symposium 1993 (Uppsala Studies in Ancient… (1996) — Contributor — 1 copy
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Statistics
- Works
- 25
- Also by
- 6
- Members
- 831
- Popularity
- #30,724
- Rating
- 3.8
- Reviews
- 11
- ISBNs
- 76
- Languages
- 1
The focus of this imaginary travelogue is Athens in 420 BCE. This is simply because it's a time and place we know the most about and find the most interesting. We grow up learning that Greece was the birthplace of Western Democracy, but what will strike most readers is how alien a place it really was. We are accustomed to equating democracy with a belief in egalitarianism, human rights, and social mobility. Yet, as the author frequently points out, the Athenians saw no disconnect between their democratic ideals on the one hand, and brutal slavery and abject poverty on the other. And the treatment of women in classical Athens was not unlike that found in modern fundamentalist Islamic states.
The book is brief, entertaining, and written in simple, straightforward prose. I would recommend it as an introductory work on Ancient Greece, not only for adults, but for teenage readers as well, with the caveat that there is some discussion of prostitution and other sexual topics.… (more)