Herodotus: The Father of History

By: Elizabeth Vandiver, The Great Courses

Narrated by: Elizabeth Vandiver

Witness the "works and wonders" of the ancient world through the eyes of its first great historian in this sparkling series of 24 lectures from a much-honored teacher and classical scholar.

Herodotus (c. 484-420 B.C.E.) was a Greek who was born in what is now the modern Turkish resort town of Bodrum and who died, so tradition says, in the south of Italy. In between, his tirelessly inquiring mind took him from one corner of the known world to another. And he reported on or visited all of its continents (Europe, Asia, and Africa) to write about the vast array of subjects that captured his interest. These included the "great works" of the ancient land of Egypt; the remarkable kings who built the vast Persian Empire; and the strange customs and unlikely origins of the Scythians, a warlike, mounted people who lived beyond the Danube and whose repulse of Darius and the Persians in 513 B.C.E. made them the first Europeans to throw back an eastern invasion.

The book that emerged from these "inquiries" - The Histories - is Herodotus's only known work, yet it still made Herodotus one of the rare, landmark figures in the story of thought. In these lectures, Professor Vandiver introduces you to Herodotus and The Histories, tracing the influences he assimilated and the new methods he used in crafting this monumental work. You learn how that work looked at the past in new and fresh ways, seeing it not as a distant recess shrouded in legend and rumor, but as something that lies close at hand; as something that immediately affects the here and now, and as a subject whose great personalities and patterns of events can be studied in order to make the reasons behind them as clear as possible.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your My Library section along with the audio.

©2002 The Teaching Company, LLC (P)2002 The Great Courses

Will Listen to This Again

Adding perspective and context to The Histories of Herodotus about the Greek and Persian wars, this series of lectures is a wonderful companion to reading (or listening to) Herodotus. In twenty-four half hour sessions, Professor Elizabeth Vandiver puts Herodotus’ great work into the context of other writers and movements of the time, provides background on Athenian and Spartan customs and cultures, and discusses the text, including one lecture spent analyzing the first sentence. While life is short, and there are many books and topics to explore, I enjoyed these lectures so much that I expect I'll be listening to them again.

Filled a gap in my histories

I hadn’t learned a lot about Herodotus compared to his contemporaries so it was nice to see how the ‘father’ of history might be portrayed and what work he gave to us about the Persian Wars.

Fantastic

This was the fourth course of this professor that I've listened to and this was absolutely fantastic and I think my second favorite behind the Iliad. I was sad this course ended.

Captivating

Her Entire series is excellent
i love the non apologetic attitude
and the critical examinations

a great course

i saved this one as my last of the available courses on greek history and mythology because Elizabeth Vandiver has been my fav Great Courses instructor so far. now that i am out of her courses i will have to find a copy of her book "Heroes in Herodotus: The Interaction of Myth and History"