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In 1177 B.C., marauding groups known only as the "Sea Peoples" invaded Egypt. The pharaoh’s army and navy managed to defeat them, but the victory so weakened Egypt that it soon slid into decline, as did most of the surrounding civilizations. After centuries of brilliance, the civilized world of the Bronze Age came to an abrupt and cataclysmic end. Kingdoms fell like dominoes over the course of just a few decades. No more Minoans or Mycenaeans. No more Trojans, Hittites, or Babylonians.
In this series of lectures, professor Eric H. Cline delves into the history of ancient Greece, frequently considered to be the founding nation of democracy in Western civilization. Ancient Greece lives on in modern culture, evidenced by an ever-present fascination with the tales of Homer, Greek drama, and the stories associated with Greek mythology. In the rise of Sparta and Athens, people today find a wealth of material for understanding not only ancient Greece, but the modern world.
The Roman Republic is one of the most breathtaking civilizations in world history. Between roughly 500 BCE to the turn of the millennium, a modest city-state developed an innovative system of government and expanded into far-flung territories across Europe, Northern Africa, and the Middle East. This powerful civilization inspired America's founding fathers, gifted us a blueprint for amazing engineering innovations, left a vital trove of myths, and has inspired the human imagination for 2,000 years.
Israel conjures up myriad associations for peoples of all cultures and religious backgrounds. Inextricably associated with the world's three most prominent religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam), Israel is steeped in history and conflict, much of which is known through the tales of biblical figures such as Moses, David, Solomon, and, of course, Jesus Christ.But how much of the Bible can be relied upon as accurate history? And how much of the biblical record can be verified through archaeology?
For thousands of years, Homer's ancient epic poem the Iliad has enchanted readers from around the world. When you join Professor Vandiver for this lecture series on the Iliad, you'll come to understand what has enthralled and gripped so many people.Her compelling 12-lecture look at this literary masterpiece -whether it's the work of many authors or the "vision" of a single blind poet - makes it vividly clear why, after almost 3,000 years, the Iliad remains not only among the greatest adventure stories ever told but also one of the most compelling meditations on the human condition ever written.
Since it was first published more than 25 years ago, Robert Fitzgerald's prizewinning translation of Homer's battle epic has become a classic in its own right: a standard against which all other versions of The Iliad are compared. Fitzgerald's work is accessible, ironic, faithful, written in a swift vernacular blank verse that "makes Homer live as never before" ( Library Journal).
In 1177 B.C., marauding groups known only as the "Sea Peoples" invaded Egypt. The pharaoh’s army and navy managed to defeat them, but the victory so weakened Egypt that it soon slid into decline, as did most of the surrounding civilizations. After centuries of brilliance, the civilized world of the Bronze Age came to an abrupt and cataclysmic end. Kingdoms fell like dominoes over the course of just a few decades. No more Minoans or Mycenaeans. No more Trojans, Hittites, or Babylonians.
In this series of lectures, professor Eric H. Cline delves into the history of ancient Greece, frequently considered to be the founding nation of democracy in Western civilization. Ancient Greece lives on in modern culture, evidenced by an ever-present fascination with the tales of Homer, Greek drama, and the stories associated with Greek mythology. In the rise of Sparta and Athens, people today find a wealth of material for understanding not only ancient Greece, but the modern world.
The Roman Republic is one of the most breathtaking civilizations in world history. Between roughly 500 BCE to the turn of the millennium, a modest city-state developed an innovative system of government and expanded into far-flung territories across Europe, Northern Africa, and the Middle East. This powerful civilization inspired America's founding fathers, gifted us a blueprint for amazing engineering innovations, left a vital trove of myths, and has inspired the human imagination for 2,000 years.
Israel conjures up myriad associations for peoples of all cultures and religious backgrounds. Inextricably associated with the world's three most prominent religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam), Israel is steeped in history and conflict, much of which is known through the tales of biblical figures such as Moses, David, Solomon, and, of course, Jesus Christ.But how much of the Bible can be relied upon as accurate history? And how much of the biblical record can be verified through archaeology?
For thousands of years, Homer's ancient epic poem the Iliad has enchanted readers from around the world. When you join Professor Vandiver for this lecture series on the Iliad, you'll come to understand what has enthralled and gripped so many people.Her compelling 12-lecture look at this literary masterpiece -whether it's the work of many authors or the "vision" of a single blind poet - makes it vividly clear why, after almost 3,000 years, the Iliad remains not only among the greatest adventure stories ever told but also one of the most compelling meditations on the human condition ever written.
Since it was first published more than 25 years ago, Robert Fitzgerald's prizewinning translation of Homer's battle epic has become a classic in its own right: a standard against which all other versions of The Iliad are compared. Fitzgerald's work is accessible, ironic, faithful, written in a swift vernacular blank verse that "makes Homer live as never before" ( Library Journal).
Look beyond the abstract dates and figures, kings and queens, and battles and wars that make up so many historical accounts. Over the course of 48 richly detailed lectures, Professor Garland covers the breadth and depth of human history from the perspective of the so-called ordinary people, from its earliest beginnings through the Middle Ages.
The Trojan War is the most famous conflict in history, the subject of Homer's Iliad, one of the cornerstones of Western literature. Although many listeners know that this literary masterwork is based on actual events, there is disagreement about how much of Homer's tale is true. Drawing on recent archaeological research, historian and classicist Barry Strauss explains what really happened in Troy more than 3,000 years ago. For many years it was thought that Troy was an insignificant place that never had a chance against the Greek warriors who laid siege and overwhelmed the city.
In 1922, Howard Carter peered into Tutankhamun's tomb for the first time, the only light coming from the candle in his outstretched hand. Urged to tell what he was seeing through the small opening he had cut in the door to the tomb, the Egyptologist famously replied, "I see wonderful things". Carter's fabulous discovery is just one of the many spellbinding stories told in Three Stones Make a Wall.
Public interest in biblical archaeology is at an all-time high, as television documentaries pull in millions of viewers to watch shows on the Exodus, the Ark of the Covenant, and the so-called Lost Tomb of Jesus. Important discoveries with relevance to the Bible are made virtually every year - during 2007 and 2008 alone researchers announced at least seven major discoveries in Israel, five of them in or near Jerusalem.
Few warriors, in life or literature, have challenged their commanding officer and the rationale of the war they fought as fiercely as did Homer's hero Achilles. Today, the Iliad is celebrated as one of the greatest works in literature, the epic of all epics; many have forgotten that the subject of this ancient poem was war - not merely the poetical romance of the war at Troy, but War, in all its enduring devastation.
In this landmark work, one of the world's most renowned Egyptologists tells the epic story of this great civilization, from its birth as the first nation-state to its final absorption into the Roman Empire - 3,000 years of wild drama, bold spectacle, and unforgettable characters. Award-winning scholar Toby Wilkinson captures not only the lavish pomp and artistic grandeur of this land of pyramids and pharaohs but for the first time reveals the constant propaganda and repression that were its foundations.
Before their extinction, dinosaurs dominated Earth's terrestrial habitats for about 160 million years. They present the ultimate puzzle in forensic science, but we have learned a great deal about them in the last 50 years. This lecture series will explain the evolutionary and ecological relationships among dinosaurs, what it might have been like to be present in their time, and the question of what ultimately brought about the total extinction of dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous Period.
A monumental retelling of world history through the lens of maritime enterprise, revealing in breathtaking depth how people first came into contact with one another by ocean and river, lake and stream, and how goods, languages, religions, and entire cultures spread across and along the world's waterways, bringing together civilizations and defining what makes us most human.
In this, the first prose history in European civilization, Herodotus describes the growth of the Persian Empire with force, authority, and style. Perhaps most famously, the book tells the heroic tale of the Greeks' resistance to the vast invading force assembled by Xerxes, king of Persia. Here are not only the great battles - Marathon, Thermopylae, and Salamis - but also penetrating human insight and a powerful sense of epic destiny at work.
When American archaeologists discovered a collection of cuneiform tablets in Iraq in the late 19th century, they were confronted with a language and a people who were at the time only scarcely known to even the most knowledgeable scholars of ancient Mesopotamia: the Sumerians.
Had the Angles and Saxons not purposefully migrated to the isles of the Britons and brought with them their already-well-developed use of language, Angelina Jolie may never have appeared in the movie Beowulf. Professor Michael D.C. Drout is at his best when lecturing on the fascinating history, language, and societal adaptations of the Anglo-Saxons.
Understanding our humanity - the essence of who we are - is one of the deepest mysteries and biggest challenges in modern science. Why do we have bad moods? Why are we capable of having such strange dreams? How can metaphors in our language hold such sway on our actions? As we learn more about the mechanisms of human behavior through evolutionary biology, neuroscience, anthropology, and other related fields, we're discovering just how intriguing the human species is.
But did Troy actually exist? And if so, where is it located? Was the Trojan War actually fought? If it was, did it take place over the course of ten years, as Homer wrote, or was it a much longer series of battles? And why was the war fought? Could Helen's face alone really have launched a thousand ships?
In this course, esteemed professor Eric H. Cline examines the real history of Troy and delves into the archaeological discoveries (which continue to the present day) that help to answer the questions above. Through an entertaining and incisive analysis of known data, Professor Cline provides a fuller, richer understanding of this historic clash.
This was a thoroughly enjoyable series of lectures on Bronze Age Greece. If you find yourself interested in this period of history you'll find this absolutely fascinating. I loved this book and would buy again.
12 of 14 people found this review helpful
This 2006 course may seem a little dated, in part because in several of the lectures Dr. Cline refers to the 2004 movie "Troy" that starred Brad Pitt as the iconic Greek hero Achilles (a movie that I, like Dr. Cline, enjoyed more than the critics did). Don’t let that turn you off. This course is a great mix of history, literature, and archeology.
Eric Cline is one of my favorites among the academics who star in the Modern Scholar and Great Courses. He has wide-ranging interests and expertise, as well as a kind of dorky sense of humor about himself. And, as an archeologist, he doesn’t just read, write, and pontificate from an ivory tower (in Dr. Cline’s case, it’s George Washington University). He has spent many seasons doing field work in the Middle East and has seen first-hand much of what he talks about.
After an introductory lecture, the first three sessions give an overview of the clashing parties--the Mycenaeans (Achaeans/Greeks), Hittites (Trojans), and the Sea Peoples--in the late Bronze Age, the time the Trojan War most likely took place (if indeed it did take place, which Cline thinks it did). The Sea Peoples are the most mysterious of these groups, and probably for that reason I found them the most interesting. (Cline’s book “1177 BC: The Year Civilization Fell Apart,” an in-depth analysis of the Sea Peoples and their role in the collapse of Bronze Age civilization, expands on many of the themes he introduces in these lectures.)
The second group of lectures turns from history to literature. Turns out that many of the plot points we associate with the Iliad--including the famous Trojan Horse--aren’t in the Iliad at all, but are part of a larger work, the Epic Cycle, that today exists only in fragments or referenced in other works (such as the tragedies of the classical Greek playwright Aeschylus). These lectures discuss the questions of who was Homer, and was there even a Homer, and (the presence of gods and goddesses aside), how accurate is the Iliad? Does it in fact depict the late Bronze Age of the Trojan War, or the early Iron Age of Homer? There is also a lecture on ancient Hittite writings that may (or may not) shed light on the “real” Trojan War. All in all, a unique perspective that draws on all of Cline’s fields of interest.
The largest group of lectures covers the discovery and excavation of what is now generally accepted as the remains of the ancient city (or cities, as you’ll learn) of Troy. Once dismissed as myth, today there is more archeological evidence for the existence of Troy and the Trojan War than there is for the Exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt (Professor Cline, also an expert in biblical archaeology, has a different course that covers that).
I highly recommend these lectures as a starting point for anyone interested in the history of ancient Greece. There are a number of YouTube videos of talks by Professor Cline, if you want to check out his style for yourself.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful
There's a lot of information here, and I enjoyed the enthusiasm of Professor Cline. Unfortunately, there's also a lot of repetition.
This is much more archaeology than Iliad. I learned a great deal about the various archaeologists who have sought Troy over the years. One, in particular, was evidently a scoundrel and a liar - his story is fascinating. And what a to-do over "Priam's Treasure"!
I just think it was a little long and (to repeat myself!) very, very repetitive. If you have a real interest in archaeology, then by all means go for it. If your interest is more literary, perhaps another history of Homer and the Iliad would be more appropriate.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful
This course was helpful to me in understanding the archaeology about Troy and its implications for the historicity of The Trojan War. If you don't care to hear about Troy level 9B and why it may be less important than level 9C, you might get bogged down a bit.
5 of 6 people found this review helpful
What did you love best about The Modern Scholar?
The lecture series was broken down into sections relating to the possibilities surrounding whether the Trojan War actually happened, potential locations, archaeological evidence uncovered to date by various excavations since the 19th century and the various theories of how and when Troy was likely destroyed.
What did you like best about this story?
It gave me some new insights to the story and how the story may have evolved from the accepted 1150 BCE occurrence of the war and Homer's rendition told 500 years later, the concept that the famous Trojan Horse may not be what we think but instead a metaphor and the proposition that maybe the war wasn't because of Helen afterall.
What about the narrator’s performance did you like?
I found Professor Cline's delivery easy to understand, entertaining and informative.
Any additional comments?
If you want more in depth discussion about the story itself - this is not for you. However, if you are interested in archaeology or the evidence that indicates the possible remains of Troy then this lecture series is spot on. Enjoy!
2 of 2 people found this review helpful
Cline covers a lot of ground, not only the history of the Iliad but also the questions surrounding Homer, the histories of the archeologists and archeological digs that have searched for Troy, and the questions that archeology and study have yet to answer.
Cline is a pleasant, interesting lecturer that makes the subject matter both intriguing and accessible to the listener.
5 of 6 people found this review helpful
I would recommend these lectures to anyone who has an interest in Homer's story of Troy "The Iliad", an interest in ancient Greek history, or in archaeology.
Dr. Cline's in-depth knowledge of all these complex subjects is obvious; yet he has a real talent for communicating with the general listener and making the subject matter easily understandable and ... fascinating.
5 of 6 people found this review helpful
Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?
Yes, if they loved ancient history like I do. This lecture series is good.
What other book might you compare The Modern Scholar to and why?
None. Only real lectures I have sat through.
What didn’t you like about the narrator’s performance?
The narrator tried to be funny, but wasn't.
Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?
No. It was fun to listen per each lecture with a break in between to digest the info.
Any additional comments?
A really good series. Check it out.
2 of 3 people found this review helpful
Goes over a lot of material, but never gets tedious. He's also fair with the differing views on the matter.
This covers much the same ground as the Michael Wood tv series. The lectures are very informative and provide a lot of detail. The host professor cline is a good host. If you liked the above TVs series, this is an excellent addition to your library.