Book description
So much of what we know of the Ancient World comes from Herodotus (c.
490 BC - c. 420 BC) that he will always remain the greatest of
historians. But in addition such a large part of the entertainment
value of the Ancient World comes from his enormous, omnivorous,
sometimes credulous appetite for stories of distant lands and strange creatures.
Great Journeys allows readers to travel both around the planet and
back through the centuries - but also back into ideas and worlds
frightening, ruthless and cruel in different ways from our own. Few
reading experiences can begin to match that of engaging with writers
who saw astounding things: Great civilisations, walls of ice,
violent and implacable jungles, deserts and mountains, multitudes of
birds and flowers new to science. Reading these books is to see the
world afresh, to rediscover a time when many cultures were quite
strange to each other, where legends and stories were treated as facts
and in which so much was still to be discovered.
Herodotus (c. 490 BC - c. 420 BC) was an Ionian traveller and
storyteller. He was exiled from Helicarnassus after his involvement in
an unsuccessful coup d'etat against the ruling dynasty and undertook
some of the many journeys described in his
Histories
. He is often still known by the title, first given to him by Cicero, of
the 'Father of History'.
