Greece in the Making 1200-479 BC

<p><em>Greece in the Making</em> <em>1200–479 BC</em> is an accessible and comprehensive account of Greek history from the end of the Bronze Age to the Classical Period. The first edition of this book broke new ground by acknowledging that barring a small number of archaic poems and inscriptions the majority of our literary evidence for archaic Greece reported only what later writers wanted to tell and so was subject to systematic selection and distortion. This book offers a narrative which acknowledges the later traditions as traditions but insists that we must primarily confront the contemporary evidence which is in large part archaeological and art historical and must make sense of it in its own terms. </p><p>In this second edition as well as updating the text to take account of recent scholarship and re-ordering Robin Osborne has addressed more explicitly the weaknesses and unsustainable interpretations which the first edition chose merely to pass over. He now spells out why this book features no ‘rise of the polis’ and no ‘colonization’ and why the treatment of Greek settlement abroad is necessarily spread over various chapters. Students and teachers alike will particularly appreciate the enhanced discussion of economic history and the more systematic treatment of issues of gender and sexuality.</p>