cover image The Greeks and Greek Civilization

The Greeks and Greek Civilization

Jacob Burckhardt. St. Martin's Press, $27.95 (448pp) ISBN 978-0-312-19276-1

In 1965, Murray wrote his scathing review of Palmer Hilty's translation of the Griechische Kulturgeschichte. His criticism of Hilty's selections taken from Burckhardt's lectures on Greek culture drew a letter from Moses Finley revealing that he and Sheila Stern were working on another translation with different selections. After Finley's death in 1986, the project languished until 1989, when Stern asked Murray if he would be interested in taking over the task of editing the book. This edition, the first to appear in the U.S., includes Burckhardt's most ground-breaking ideas from the German text (edited by Jacob Oeri, Burckhardt's nephew). Murray's helpful introduction succinctly explains the 19th-century context; substantial endnotes clarify the ancient sources. Although necessarily an abridgment of the whole, this fluid, smooth translation fills a gap in scholarship. Burckhardt (1818-1897) broke with the positivist Hegelian historians of his time who preferred to study the progression of events and ""great men."" He reconceptualized Greek culture with his new methodology and believed that how an event was perceived was more important than the event itself, which could only be presented subjectively. Through vivid examples from ancient literary texts and ethnographies, Burckhardt advocated the study of cultural history, meaning the study of writers, ideas, visual arts and other ""monuments"" of a society. This book will become a necessary tool in courses not only on 19th-century historiography, but on the ancient world as well. (Oct.)