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Customer Review
- Reviewed in the United States on June 21, 2007A little more than a year ago, I read the Iliad for the first time as an adult, for no other reason than my own entertainment. I was at once bitten by the ancient Greek bug and set out to obtain the classical education I somehow missed in high school and college. I pursued this by taking a few Teaching Company audio courses, reading primary sources of the ancients -- Homer, Herodotus, Thucydides -- as well as the best popular and scholarly books I could find to elucidate the various eras of ancient Greek civilization. One of the latter certainly is Tom Holland's Persian Fire.
I came to Persian Fire with a decent background in the overall theme, and I read Herodotus in tandem with it through much of the book, but Holland's treatment enhanced everything I had absorbed prior because he approached the subject with a regional theme. It would be difficult to comprehend the foreign policy of the United States in the latter half of the 20th century without a fairly comprehensive background in the history of the Soviet Union; yet most historians of early fifth century Greece provide scant attention to the foe that most defined their political culture, the Persians they referred to sometimes pejoratively as "the Mede." Holland's work is superior from the get-go because he takes the regional approach most period treatments gloss over.
For those who want to delve right in to the Greco-Persian conflict, patience is in order as Holland sets the stage with an extremely well written background history not only of chief Hellenic city-states Athens and Sparta, but most importantly the origins of Persian rule -- and all of that takes us -- sometimes breathlessly with the gusto of a great author in love with his subject -- to an account of Mediterranean geo-politics on the eve of the conflict. I got more of the sense of the ancient world at the time from Holland than any other single work I had read previously.
Unlike many contemporary historians of the ancient world like Kagan, Holland deliberately avoids trying to fit the themes and the conflicts of 2500 years ago into today's foreign policies, but -- remarkably so -- he does manage to interpret the actions of the key players into the sometimes Machiavellian power politics characteristic of states throughout recorded history. No other work I have encountered brings marble figures like Themistocles and Aristides to flesh-and-blood life, warts and all, the way Holland does in this book.
A great read, in every way. Lots of material and not a boring spot in the story. I'll probably re-read it again someday. If you have any interest at all in the ancient Greek world, don't miss this one!
