- Hardcover: 208 pages
- Publisher: Profile Books; illustrated edition edition (19 Jan 2006)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 1861976178
- ISBN-13: 978-1861976178
- Product Dimensions: 20.2 x 13.6 x 2.4 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 903,053 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
The Tomb of Agamemnon
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More About the Author
Product Description
Review
Archaeologist Cathy Gere's wonderful little history/guidebook, "The Tomb of Agamemnon," is about a lot of things. It's about how each new era bends the past to its own needs. It's about what's gained--and lost--when scientists displace passionate amateurs. It's about the human desire to impose narrative, false if need be, on the mute relics of history. What Gere's book isn't about, strictly speaking, is the tomb of Agamemnon, because that doesn't exist...Still, lots of historical icons are fictional--George Washington's wooden teeth come to mind--and Gere spends a hundred or so lively, thought-provoking pages describing the "highly productive career" of this one... Unlikely as it seems, this book is a real page-turner. And if you like it, you're in luck. Gere's book is the latest in an ongoing series ÝWonders of the World on great monuments--Westminster Abbey, the Parthenon--published by Harvard University Press. Don't leave home without them. -- Joann C. Gutin "Newsday" (03/05/2006)
Product Description
In a remote corner of Greece stands Mycenae, the fabled city of Homer's King Agamemnon. These immemorial ruins seem to bear witness to the historical reality behind the legend of the Trojan War and were revered in antiquity as the pagan world's most tangible connection to Homer's age of heroes. Today Mycenae is one of the more haunting and impressive archaeological sites in Europe, visited by hundreds of thousands of tourists every year. From Homer to Himmler, from Thucydides to Freud, Mycenae has occupied a singular place in the western imagination. As the backdrop to one of the more famous military campaigns of all time, Agamemnon's city has served for generation after generation as a symbol of the human appetite for war. As an archaeological site, it has given its name to the splendours of one of Europe's earliest civilisations: the Mycenaean Age. In this fascinating book, Cathy Gere tells the story of this extraordinary place - from the Cult of the Hero that sprung up in the shadow of the great burned walls in the eighth century BC, to Agamemnon's twentieth-century reincarnation as an Aryan military genius, to the distinctly anti-heroic conclusions of modern archaeology.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This feels like a book you want to buy from the moment you pick it up and hold it in your hands and in a world where publishing values have slumped, that makes a pleasant change. But the contents are also worth reading: Gere isn't a classicist and that shows, but she has done her homework and has written an entertaining book that engages with the 'reception' of not just the tale of Troy but also the heroic ethos of the archaic Greek world. From the 5th century bc, tragedians re-engaged with Homer, and that re-writing and appropriation of myths and meaning continues through history. The chapter on the Nazi appropriation of the Greeks, and particularly the Spartans, as the original Aryan race is both chilling and fascinatingly weird.
An excellent read in an excellent series, which will both inform the layman and maybe reinvigorate the professional classicist.
An excellent read in an excellent series, which will both inform the layman and maybe reinvigorate the professional classicist.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This gorgeous volumne, with its sumptuous gold cover, should be top of the book-shopping list for anyone who is interested in history, archaeology or travel. Witty and erudite, Ms Gere writes beautifully, and, while clearly an academic, never talks down to those of us who are not. Reading this book is like having a long chat with your favourite teacher... if only all history books were as broad in their range and as amusing. Highly recommended!
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Rather than telling you the story of what happened at ancient Mycenae what we have here is the story of the story and how it grew over the centuries.
It is a text book example (literally) of how someone's wishful thinking is picked up by later generations as undisputed fact who in turn pile on more myth from there leading you to a completely inaccurate view of what really happened.
The story is a fascinating one and if you then take all the suppositions heaped on this site and start thinking about more sensitive sites in Biblical archaeology you start seeing the raft of problems you have describing exactly what went on and trying to please the believers and the searchers of facts all at the same time.
However the whole book is written with a wit and pace that many other historical authors should take note of. It is fun, entertaining and informative all at the same time.
If you liked this there's more historical debate and fun at @HistoryGems on Facebook and Twitter
It is a text book example (literally) of how someone's wishful thinking is picked up by later generations as undisputed fact who in turn pile on more myth from there leading you to a completely inaccurate view of what really happened.
The story is a fascinating one and if you then take all the suppositions heaped on this site and start thinking about more sensitive sites in Biblical archaeology you start seeing the raft of problems you have describing exactly what went on and trying to please the believers and the searchers of facts all at the same time.
However the whole book is written with a wit and pace that many other historical authors should take note of. It is fun, entertaining and informative all at the same time.
If you liked this there's more historical debate and fun at @HistoryGems on Facebook and Twitter
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Informative starting point
The Tomb of Agamemnon spends some time discussing and examining the artefacts, but it then launches into discussions of how the artefacts and sites were discovered, the personal... Read more
Published 9 months ago by Isis
Well written ...BUT...
Cathy Gere has produced an important, facinating and very readable book on the way that generations of imperialists have used Homer, Agamemnon and Mycenae to project their own pet... Read more
Published 15 months ago by Oneandall
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