The Greek World After Alexander 323-30 BC [Paperback]

 

 

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Graham Shipley has written an excellent book for students and others encountering the Hellenistic age (the three tumultous centures between Alexander's death and Octavian's victory at Actium) for the first time. Broadly there are two ways of looking at the history of Eastern mediterranean in this period. One is the `degeneration' framework which sees this period in general terms as a sad falling-off from the classical apogee of Greek achievement. The other is that which sees this as a period of rapid change when the civilization of near east and western mediterranean were drawn together through the rubric provided by the Hellenistic culture.This book falls firmly in the second group. An important aspect is that this book eschews the functionalist approach. Indeed the author warns through out against anachronisms and retrojecting analysis derived from the experience of modern capitalism, Imperialisam or christian descourse to understand the period. The book opens with a chapter revewing the approaches and sources and next traces Alexander and his successors to 276 BCE. The next chapter is a important one on kings and cities and examines the consequeness of the political changes of the period 338 - 276 for the old city states and details the ways which Cities and Kings found of co existing. It questions the received wisdom that the polis met its end at Chaironeia in 338 and shows how the Ptolemaic and Antigouid power relied on keeping cities contented. There are chapters on Macedonia and Greece, the Seleukid Kindom and Pergamon and Ptolemaic Egypt. These are comprehensive and the chapter on Ptolemaic Egypt draws a lot on papyrological evidence and re examines the conclusions reached by conventional wisdom on Ptolemaic Egypt viz that it had a highly interventionist administration or had a very bereaucratic and rational state economy . It also guards against temptations to interpret difficulties in late Ptolemaic Egypt in context of reinterpretation of 20th Century empire by Said and others as a result of `native resistance'. Other chapters are on religion and philosophy, literature and social identity and on Greek 'Science' after Aristotle. The book concludes with the coming of the colossus of north - Rome. The book has large number of maps and line diagrams and the text is supported by copious amount of notes and bibliography (150 pages to 400 of text) Overall the approach is refreshingly non-judgemental and allows the diversity of cultures, social forms, and landscapes to emerge. The important topic of Religion and Philosophy though is very summarily treated but that is a minor quibble. It's other competitiors in this field viz Peter Greens `Alexander to Actium - The historical evolution of the Hellenustic Age' falls firmly in the `degenerate' camp and doesn't take into account the recent scholarship. The `Hellenstic World' by F.W. Walbank is dated. All in all this book will be a standard introduction to the Hellenistic Age for quite some time to come.

I got this book from the remainders section at my local bookstore. It illuminates a neglected period of ancient history, that is often seen as a period of decline, even though it produced some of the pinnacles of Greek thought like Euclid.

Shipley writes for a scholarly audience, and it shows. The book's exposition is somewhat muddled and does not follow a progressive plan. For instance, many references are made to the role of Pergamon early in the book, and explained only far later in the (relatively short) chapter on the Seleukids and Pergamon. The maps are interspersed seemingly at random with the text, and none of them shows the boundaries or zones of influence of the competing hellenistic kingdoms. Making the most of this book will require at least two readings.

As such, I don't recommend this book as a first introduction to the subject, as there is a tendency to lose track of the forest for the tree. It is excellent for its in-depth survey of the field, and its highly annotated bibliographic references (as befits a scholarly work).

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