Michael Scott (18)Reviews

A well-written and workmanlike account of some of the iconic archaeological discoveries of the past couple of centuries, from different parts of the world. There is not much new here for the seasoned aficionado of old civilizations and remains, although there are a couple of unusual ones like the broken pots in the Aegean islands, and the kurgan graves in the central Altai in Russia/Mongolian frontier area.½

Se un gallo canta di mattina a Roma ed un altro gallo canta di mattina (sebbene alcune ore prima) in Cina il chicchirichì è identico, ma potrebbe avere un accento diverso!

Voler ammassare sotto un’unica bandiera le diversità di idee e popoli, che non possono essere annullate solo scrivendo un libro, è un costringere ad accettare lo slalom, tra le vie di qualsiasi città, tra individui con la testa reclinata sullo smartphone. Ed abbiamo ottenuto l’omologazione.
Si possono aborrire i seguenti termini:
social, connessione, condivisione, facebook, bla bla bla?

Dopo decenni di letture di libri storici con la distinzione chiara tra ac e dc (bc and ad) ci troviamo, con Scott, alla divisione tra aev ev: a che pro?

Nel mio campo di studi greci e romani si pubblicano spesso libri con titoli che terminano con le parole “... nel mondo antico”. Tuttavia, a un’ispezione più attenta, ciò che il titolo intende in realtà è il mondo greco-romano del bacino mediterraneo, dove greci e romani vivevano come rane attorno a uno stagno. “Mondo antico” è diventata un’abbreviazione accettata per un’area di interazione umana molto limitata, concentrata intorno a un unico mare: I confini che ci siamo autoimposti ci hanno indotto a confondere la parte con il tutto.
(14)

Ciò che rese Roma unica – e una potenza unica nei secoli successivi al 449 a.e.v. - fu il suo complicato sistema di controlli ed equilibri, grazie al quale tutti I livelli della società rimanevano nella convinzione che fosse più vantaggioso farne parte che ripudiarlo. Secondo Polibio, Roma aveva finalmente conquistato, tramite la “disciplina di molte lotte e molti tormenti”, la concordia ordinum.
(82)

… tanto che già otto anni dopo la marcia di Annibale i resoconti delle fonti storiche del Mediterraneo e della Cina coincisero per la prima volta; da qui in poi, il mondo antico assunse l’aspetto di una scacchiera, nella quale le mosse di ciascun individuo avevano conseguenze per tutto l’insieme.
(124)

Il iv secolo, di conseguenza, merita a buon diritto la fama di momento decisivo nella storia, non soltanto perché fu teatro di dinamici cambiamenti nell’assetto religioso e politico di ampie fasce di un mondo antico effettivamente interconnesso, ma anche perché quelle mutazioni hanno ancora oggi un forte impatto sul funzionamento del nostro mondo e su molte delle idee che guidano la nostra vita.
(359-60)

very good overview. better idea of the relationship between areas of ancient world by time and geography

It's pretty weird to open up to the first chapter of a book subtitled 'A Global History of Antiquity'-- having read an introduction, which lambasts all other historians for failing to write proper, global history, and declares that the book you're about to read is truly revolutionary in its approach--and find that it's about the Birth of Democracy in Athens. Uh... okay, weird place to start. But it also sets the tone almost perfectly: this is a collection of stories told quite often before (founding of Roman Republic, Confucius' life story, Hannibal, the First Emperor, Contantine and Christianity, early Buddhism and Hinduism in India, Buddhism in China), with a few more novel anecdotes thrown in (the pages on Armenia were nice). What holds all this together? The revolutionary method promised in the intro seems to be comparing things from different places, so people in the ancient world(s) all did political stuff, and military stuff, and religious stuff.

Underwhelming, to say the least. This would, on the other hand, be perfect for high school or first year college students, who don't know the stories, or know them only a little. Scott's writing is fine, though, again, underwhelming. And younger readers might also be innocent enough to be excited by the awful contemporary historiographical cliches (here's the opening of one chapter: "One of her hands is placed provocatively on her slender waist, the other caught in a tentative caress of her thigh. Her ample bosom, emphasised by her clinging, flimsy clothers, is turned towards her companion" etc etc... He's describing a coin, but boy was that an exciting way to start a chapter! I'm way more interested in slender waists than I am in the Guptas! Way to trick me, author!)

Skip this, and head straight for the first half of Frankopan's Silk Roads.

Despite claiming to be about global connectivity in Antiquity, this book in fact focuses on the "Classical" civilizations of Greece and Rome. It follows the trend among historians in the past decades to "compare" China with Rome, but it does so on the basis of other popularizing books (I. Morris, P. Frankopan, J. Mann), and a random selection of often outdated scholarly publications.

And despite the image on this edition's cover of an Achaemenid Persian rhyton from the Miho Museum in Kyoto (!), the Achaemenid Empire with its enormous impact on Eurasian connectivity is virtually absent from the narrative. Its successor, the Seleukid Empire, fares somewhat better -- perhaps because the author erroneously thinks of the Seleukids as "Greeks" -- but ignoring all post-1990 scholarship on the empire, its impact on world history is misrepresented. The nomad Xiongnu confederation, which unified the northern steppe zone, is mentioned only in passing as enemy of "China".

The mission statement on pp. 5-7 ("The 'Ancient World' -- or 'Worlds'?") is important but turns out to be too ambitious. The book is well-written, accessible, and intelligent; but it is far from "impeccably researched", "authoritative", or "bold and imaginative", as the blurb / newspaper reviews cited by the publisher claim it is. This is still traditional Greece and Rome centered history, but with some China added. To be sure, the book tries so hard to confirm what general audiences already think, that a successful TV-series could very well be made from it.

This rather dense study is as much, if not more so, an examination of Delphi as a player in the international arrangements of its time as it is of a religious & cultural institution. This is going to be a problem for the general reader who might not have a broad enough sense of who the players were over the wide span of time covered by this book. Despite the author's attempt to maintain a colloquial tone I found it something of a slog and I really can't claim that Scott held my interest all that well; particularly once he was beyond the zenith of the classical Greek city-states. Still, if one is interested in Delphi, this is probably worth looking at more like a reference book to be dipped into, rather than a narrative to be read cover to cover.½

I heard Michael Scott talking about Delphi on a radio interview. He was an engaging interviewee and, having just been to Delphi, and been impressed - well apart from the bored schoolchildren on mandatory trips - so what could go wrong?

The problem is, that although Mr Scott clearly knows his subject, this book is poorly conceived. When presented in chronological, as opposed to thematic, order the reader gets confused by the countless intrigues Delhi has with ancient states with which the reader is not familiar. We are not talking about Athens, Sparta, Macedon or even Rome here. We are talking about the internal politics of the Aeolian League. Frankly I couldn't keep up with who Delphi was at loggerheads with over the centuries, who was building which temple and why, and who had "precedence". This book would have been much better had it been thematically organised. In the end, I did what I rarely do; I shamefacedly returned the book to my bookshelf after 180 of 280 pages. After all life is too short. Mr Scott - or perhaps his editors - have managed the barely possible; to render Delphi dull and boring. Given his knowledge of his subject, there is clearly a good book about Delphi within Mr Scott - sadly this is not it

An engaging writer, Michael Scott's book is deceptively easy to read, making sense of a period of ancient Greek history which changed the world.

I read it in Dutch.
The translation is absolutely awful.