“Breaking news - the Archaic period of ancient Greece is not archaic! The updated and augmented second edition of this thematically inflected history does full justice to an experimental and brilliantly innovative era.” - Paul Cartledge, University of Cambridge
“Informative and clear for the student and the interested non-specialist, this book is full of stimulating observations and questions, from which also the specialist may profit. With its second edition, Jonathan Hall offers a reliable and up-to-date survey of the major developments in society, institutions, and culture in the Greek World and its periphery from the end of the Mycenaean palace administration to the Persian Wars. By operating with a ‘long Archaic Age’, that has its roots in the Late Bronze Age, Jonathan Hall fruitfully challenges the traditional periodization of Greek history.” - Angelos Chaniotis, Institute for Advanced Study
“Further enriched in its second edition, this book offers a balanced, superbly informed, critical, and lucid discussion of all the major issues that contributed to shaping Greek society and culture in its formative period. Engaging closely with the archaeological evidence, textual sources, and modern scholarship, the author challenges many well-established views and introduces the reader to the evidence as well as the tools, approaches, and methods on which a meaningful reconstruction of the crucial developments in early Greek history can be based. Hall does not present final truths but takes us along on his exciting and sometimes frustrating road to discovery; he stimulates our thinking and helps us penetrate to a deeper level of understanding.” – Kurt Raaflaub, Brown University
From the Inside Flap
A History of the Archaic Greek World provides theme-based coverage of the years 1200–479 BCE. By revisiting the evidence from the period with a critical and analytical eye, Jonathan M. Hall gives the reader the opportunity to investigate at first hand this crucial formative period of Greek history. In doing so, this book casts new light on traditional themes such as the rise of the city-state, colonization, citizen militias, the origins of egalitarianism, and the emergence of a self-conscious Greek identity.
Taking into consideration feedback from the first edition, the author has updated the text and added further material, including two new sections entitled Archaeological Gaps: Attica and Crete and ‘Greek’ Culture: Unity and Diversity; he has increased illustrative material, and included a new guide to electronic resources. In addition, Hall has expanded the geographical coverage of all material considered within the book. The text continues to provide an exceptionally wide range of archaeological evidence across a number of different specialties. The author brings a willingness to question existing notions, which allows the reader to become involved in the practice of history by probing and reevaluating conventional beliefs.
From the Back Cover
A History of the Archaic Greek World provides theme-based coverage of the years 1200–479 BCE. By revisiting the evidence from the period with a critical and analytical eye, Jonathan M. Hall gives the reader the opportunity to investigate at first hand this crucial formative period of Greek history. In doing so, this book casts new light on traditional themes such as the rise of the city-state, colonization, citizen militias, the origins of egalitarianism, and the emergence of a self-conscious Greek identity.
Taking into consideration feedback from the first edition, the author has updated the text and added further material, including two new sections entitled Archaeological Gaps: Attica and Crete and ‘Greek’ Culture: Unity and Diversity; he has increased illustrative material, and included a new guide to electronic resources. In addition, Hall has expanded the geographical coverage of all material considered within the book. The text continues to provide an exceptionally wide range of archaeological evidence across a number of different specialties. The author brings a willingness to question existing notions, which allows the reader to become involved in the practice of history by probing and reevaluating conventional beliefs.
About the Author
Jonathan M. Hall is the Phyllis Fay Horton Distinguished Service Professor in the Humanities and Professor in the Departments of History and Classics and the College at the University of Chicago. He is the author of Ethnic Identity in Greek Antiquity (1997), Hellenicity: Between Ethnicity and Culture (2002), and Artifact and Artifice: Classical Archaeology and the Ancient Historian (2013).
