The Trojan War: A New History
by Barry Strauss
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Book Summary Information
Author: Barry StraussEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2007-08-21
ISBN: 0743264428
Number of pages: 288
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Book Reviews of The Trojan War: A New History
Book Review: The Face That Launched a Thousand Books
Summary: 5 Stars
Over the years, I've read quite a few books and articles about the Trojan War, but this one really hits the mark. For one thing, Strauss doesn't dwell on the oft-repeated story of Heinrich Schliemann's discovery of the "Mound at Hisarlik," which most archaeologists now agree was the site of ancient Troy. Instead, Strauss dives straight into the narrative in the Iliad and related but lesser-know works, treating Homer's probably fictional heroes as real characters and using them to illuminate the nuances of Greek and Anatolian culture during the Bronze Age.
In this narrative, Troy is a propserous client state of the Hittite Empire and the Greeks are the Vikings of the Mediterranean. The Trojan War may or may not have been about the abduction of a Spartan queen named Helen, but it could easily have been about Mycenaean raids to capture booty and Trojan women. And while today's reader is skeptical of the active participation of gods in battle, Strauss makes it clear that the gods of the Iliad were an integral part of the thinking of Bronze Age warriors, not just a poetic device.
To top it all off, Strauss is simply a good writer. There are other good books about the Trojan War (Rodney Castelden's recent "The Attack on Troy" and Michael Wood's classic "In Search of the Trojan War" come to mind), but Strauss does the best job of integrating the powerful narrative of the Homeric epic cycle with our current knowledge of the Bronze Age world. "The Trojan War" is a fast and compelling read.
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