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[Patguy]

Herodotus wrote, "so that human achievements may not become forgotten in time, and great and marvelous deeds—some displayed by Greeks, some by barbarians—may not be without their glory; and especially to show why the two peoples fought with each other."

In this book, Burrow discusses several dozen historians, ranging from Herodotus, Thucydides and Xenophon, through Tacitus, Livy and Josephus, to medieval Church historians, to Gibbon, Thomas Carlyle, Jacob Burckhart, and eventually a more or less perfunctory treatment of 20th century schools, like the later Marxists and the Annales crowd. He does a good job of explaining the distinctive features of each of these widely different historians, and sparking my interest in a few I'd nevee considered reading before (the Chronicle of Jocelin, anyone?). I was also pleased to note that he considers Ken Burns's The Civil War to be a masterpiece of modern history, as I do.

Unfortunately, my memory being what it is, I've already forgotten 98% of all of the interesting facts I've learned from Burrow's book; I'll probably refer back to this one frequently over the years to come.

[Eisworth]

This one is going on my reading list...thanks!
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Todd Eisworth
Associate Professor of Mathematics
Ohio University