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The Father of History. The Histories by Herodotus Globe & Mail July 12, 2008 Tom Holland History, like poetry, began with war. Around 440 BC, some three centuries after Homer, singing of the wrath of Achilles, composed The Iliad, a Greek by the name of Herodotus embarked upon a project no less epic.

Great deeds are usually wrought at great risks. Some men give up their designs when they have almost reached the goal While others on the contrary obtain a victory by exerting at the last moment more vigorous efforts than ever before. How much better a thing it is to be envied than to be pitied.

It took 10 months of reading (between everything else I review here), but I've finished Herodotus' Histories! I've been on a classics kick for the last year and a half or so, working my way through the publicly available syllabus of St. John's College.

Herodotus, however, besides being the first reporter, was also the first “globalist.” Fully aware of how many cultures there were on Earth, he was eager to become acquainted with all of them. Why? He believed that the best way to learn about your own culture is by familiarizing yourself with others.

I've been spending quite a bit of time reading about ancient Greece lately. Grote, Charles Freeman, even Herodutus. But I believe that the best introduction to any period of western civ., to include ancient Greece, comes from reading Will Durant.

Of late I’ve been reading The Landmark Herodotus: Histories. Lest you think the differences between the Middle East and the West are a recent phenomenon consider these passages written by Herodotus some 400 years before Christ and nearly a thousand before Mohammed: "[Persians] reserve the highest

Hi there, Herodoteans, You may recall from my previous emails how amazed I am by the Oracle(s) at Delphi and what they were able to achieve -- spiritually, culturally, politically, and economically -- despite possessing no state, no military, and no key geographies.

Eeek. The chaos. Our house is in boxes - If I never have to hear the sound of duct tape ever again, I'll be happy. It's still ringing in my ears, and that was an hour and a ten minute drive ago. We're down to eating yogurt with forks (or at least I am).

Yesterday I left the office early and went home to work on my new memoir about a man's heroic battle with his kidney stone, tentatively titled "Drink, Pee, Scream." But, concerned about finding the right publisher, I put it aside and picked up Ryszard Kapuscinski's Travels with Herodotus.

Here's the audio recording for Herodotus Books 2 and 3. Listen online or download the mp3 file and listen to it as a podcast on your ipod. Download Herodotus-May2008-Books2and3.mp3