| Title | : | Greek Mythology: A Concise Guide |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | - |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Kindle Edition |
| Number of Pages | : | 53 |
| Publication | : | Published July 3, 2016 |
Greek Mythology is an enormous field of study and a brief guide is a daunting task for any writer. The myths have a way of entwining one with another, and it is difficult to present a coherent story line without feeling one has omitted the best part of the story.
Inside you will read about...
✓ What Is A Myth?
✓ The Sources Of
Greek Mythology: A Concise Guide Reviews
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This was a solid first introduction into ancient Greek mythology. It provided an overview as to the major characteristics and abilities of some of the major gods as well as a concise version of the mythological creation of our universe. The details about the mortals these myths effected were scant but as a general overview to the topic I thought it did a good job at delivering all it did.
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Greek mythology is something I grew up with, watching cartoons and reading short stories. I still like to refresh my memory every few years at least because, as I grew, my opinions changed. As a kid I used to think so high of Zeus, being the God of all Gods you know. Now I'm finally mature enough to understand that he is, in fact, a little bitch.
This was a decent short overview but it lacked many stories dear to my heart. It also needs some editing since there were a few mistakes but that doesn't make it less enjoyable to read. -
i love Greek Mythology....reading this just makes me want to read more.
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2.5
it could've been better. -
I've got a bunch of non-fiction books by this author, and wanted to gauge his accuracy by starting on a topic that I do know rather well.
Given that this book is as short as it is, it does give a rather good overview of the basics of Greek mythology.
In places, the chapters could be arranged differently, and there were a few weird (at least to me) jumps in content (like in Chapter 1 'What is a Myth', where the author starts out listing the different interpretations of 'myth', then suddenly goes on about Greece's geography and population).
All in all, it was a concise overview, just like the title promises, and, minus a few typos, errors (see below for notes) and weird grammatic choices, fairly accurate.
Particularly the beginning of Chapter 5 gives a good, very brief and abreviated overview of the evolution of the Greek Pantheon, starting with Khaos, and ending with Zeus' victory in the Gigantomachy.
A good starting point for someone who has no notion of Greek deities, and a quick refresher course for who does.
NOTES:
chapter 3 (loc 129/492): two blatant errors. 'Titian' instead of 'Titan',
and the 3 cyclopses are Steropes, Brontes and Arges not Argos (who's a god with a thousand eyes, not one)
Ch. 5, (loc. 262/492) "Demeter... She taught man how to grow corn. Corn (or maize) is indigenous to the Americas, and was not introduced into Europe until centuries after the Hellenistic period. Word should have been replaced by another type of grain or crop."
54.0% "... And she (Demeter) is not depicted with a sheaf of corn, but with a sheaf of wheat." -
Another informative read by hourly reads!
The book acknowledges you about all the great Greek mythologies in brief. They even made you aware with all the heavenly relationships of gods.
One of my most favorite piece of mythology fro. This book was about the Cronus, the eldest titan, who eats all his 11 children and the 12th child is changed by his wife with rock called ophamalous rock which he swallows as he thinks that the rock is his twelfth child I.e. Zeus, and after that Zeus fights all the twelve titans and this war was called the titanomachy.
A must read short mythological read!!!! -
As the title says, is a concise introduction to Greek Mythology, starting with the creation of the world, the Titans, their wars, and of course the all known Olympian Gods such as Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Apollo, etc.
It also takes us on a quick view to the Trojan War and the Great Heroes like Odysseus, Theseus and Achilles.
For me it was a quick, light reminder of stories I'm always interested in reading since they have a lot of points of view whether they are old or new.
If you want to get into the basics of Greek Mythology but don't know where to start, this book is for you! -
5 🌟
This book has a history of Greek mythology and also a description of famous Greek plays.
I enjoyed this introduction novel to Greek mythology. The Greek history was nice to know too. Also the Greek plays. -
Personally, I don't think I can ever read enough books on Greek Mythology and this one was worth it I really enjoyed it.
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"How the gods must have chuckled when they added hope to the evils with which they filled Pandora's box, for they knew very well that this was the cruelest evil of them all, since it is hope that lures mankind to endure its misery to the end." (W. Somerset Maugham)
My head is spinning with all the things I'd like to learn more about. This book is a fantastic sampler of a complex and fascinating time, more a short history than a short book of myths. I think I highlighted more of it than not. -
All-in-all it’s fairly a nice work, fun to read and easy to understand, ex-cept/ -sauf/ -save...
(Kindle Ed. p. 1)
"Man: a being in search of meaning." -Plato; a philosopher c428-348BCE
Greek myth, or Greek philosophy and history? Or Greek mind? Anyway it tells how advanced their ancient philosophy on Human nature and psychology already was.
With its good introduction and conclusion all-in-all it’s fairly a nice work, fun to read and easy to understand, except those last lines of each chapter as I always point out after reading the mythology books by Mr. Robert CARLSON.
In the introduction the author tells what a myth really is, which cannot be separated from the history and philosophy (natural science and the society’s understanding of the world order in their mind’/ ment’ality back in days).
(Kindle Ed. pp. 1-2)
If you look back on the events of your day today, I am prepared to guess that you referenced Greek mythology at least twice, if not three times. Perhaps you are laughing, but think back: did you look at your horoscope under your sign of the Zodiac? Did you work like a Spartan to catch up on some work? Was your PC at work attacked by a Trojan virus? Did you order something via Amazon.com? Did you buy some household shopping at lunch time and pick up a bottle of Ajax? Perhaps you found a second-hand copy of "The Tanglewood Tales" by Nigel Hawthorne for your niece's birthday while you were out booking tickets to go to "Orpheus in the Underworld" on Saturday. Afterwards you might have wondered what it would be like to be "as rich as Croesus"! Television news channels today are discussing whether China and the United States are going to fall into the Thucydides' Trap - Thucydides being a famous Greek military leader who wrote about "the likelihood of conflict between a rising power and a currently dominant one." ...We know a great deal about it mostly through ancient pottery of all things; the ancient Egyptians may have inscribed their beliefs on the interior walls of their incredible burial sites. But the customs of the Greeks survived best on bits of decorated pottery in the form of vases, urns and pots that have defied the ravages of eons. Pottery survived, sometimes even intact, better than built structures and paintings, and these objects were decorated with abstract designs as well as realistic depictions of everyday life. The best-known style was the silhouetted, black figures in action, for example a vase by the potter Exekias depicting Achilles killing the Amazon Penthesilia dated 540 BCE.
True: Despite the fact that Amazon and Troy were different entities like Scythia in Greek hi-story, it was the Greeks, who left the records about all these, and that's why the “car” case from my previous review (read my bookreview on Celtic Mythology) with Latin alphabets, which was the official "common" letters for any ur'/ wr'iting until Renaissance: FYI, the New Test’ament had first been written in Greek and translated later to be spread in Latin for a thousand years, so the West has been calling the country, called Hellas by its own people who call themselves the Hellenes, "Greece (Gr-i’s)" of the "Greek (Gr-i’c)" people, meaning the "letter-one" or the "writing-one." Gr meant and still means alpha-bet[a] in some Scytho-tongues, and it was the power and author’ity (written rules based on the ancient authorities’ kn’owledge they believed was true lol), so our English words like grow, grand, great and Christ all got the same in them.
(Kindle Ed. pp. 2-4)
...The fact that so much Greek custom and culture was subsumed in the wave of Roman influence as the Roman Empire advanced across the ancient world has had the odd effect of highlighting many aspects of Grecian life instead of obliterating it. One just has to remember the Roman aristocrat Publius Ovidius Naso (43 BCE-17 CE) to appreciate this. He is better remembered as Ovid, the poet who based his work on Greek and Roman mythology. His Metamorphosis would become one of Shakespeare's most fruitful story sources. This brief guide will cover the rise of Greece and biographies of selected gods from its colourful pantheon. I will touch on the ways Greek mythology is different from other popular mythologies and recount some key aspects of their beliefs. The adventures, triumphs and sorrows of their heroes and heroines are told in dramatic plays that still grip modern audiences today. This is as a result of one of the most interesting gods of all times; Dionysus, twice-born son of the great Zeus.
Seriously this is probably the best introduction ever among those the same author has written so far.
(Kindle Ed. p. 5)
...it is a mistake to equate a myth with a "lie" or an untruth. Remember that we look back on ancient times and think about myths as stories or beliefs, but in the time of our ancestors the "myth" was their reality. So why were they constructed? The general consensus is that we created myths to explain our environment to ourselves and to make sense of our experiences, to answer the question about where we came from, who we are and how we can be happy. One can think of mythology as the forerunner of what we came to call philosophy, which is why myths are so entangled with religion and existentialism - and why they are so important. Myths are also how we recall historical events. It is incredible to think of all the history of the ancient world held in so fragile a vessel as the human mind!
Gen’i-us, it's a homerun! I just want to throw one question here: Is our Christian belief any different? Without Hope, any god is useless.
(Kindle Ed. p. 11)
...Socrates' greatest pupil, Plato (429-347 BCE) was openly scathing of Homer and Hesiod: "These, methinks, composed false stories which they told and still tell to mankind." Aristotle (384-322 BCE) too was fairly dismissive of the school of Hesiod, saying "about those who have invented clever mythologies it is not worthwhile to take a serious book." It is therefore somewhat confusing to find that he wrote an entire book on the subject called "Metaphysics," in which he expressed appreciation for the fact that great myths would often form the basis of philosophical formulations about the nature of being...
Yeah, so I'm just talking about the same thing to the faith of my society where I belong just like they did to theirs.
(Kindle Ed. pp. 16-17)
“How the gods must have chuckled when they added Hope to the evils
with which they filled Pandora’s box, for they knew very well
that this was the cruelest evil of them all, since it is
Hope that lures mankind to endure its misery to the end.”
—W. Somerset Maugham; British author 1874–1965
Great lines, but how are these relevant to the chapter to be the ending lines of it? The author does that all the time in all his mythology books and that's why he always loses one star. The author should know that a book is for both its writer “and” its readers who don’t get to see the connection and relevance of these without any explanation like the author does, and that’s why they choose to read the author’s works to learn, so explain them ye shall.
(Kindle Ed. p. 29)
Achilles speaking to the seer Calchas.
Prophet of evil, when have you ever said good things to me?
You love to foretell the worst, always the worst!
You never show good news.
—Homer; Iliad. Book I
Again, what are these lines here for? A prelude to Trojan War of the following chapter? He should have put these lines as the introduction for that chapter then. It’s a wrong form’a[c]ting causing con-fus'ion among readers to lose a star.
(Kindle Ed. pp. 34-35)
Electra receives the urn containing her brother’s ashes. “But now, an exile from home and fatherland, thou hast perished miserably, far from thy sister; woe is me, these loving hands have not washed or decked thy corpse, nor taken up, as was meet, their sad burden from the flaming pyre. No! at the hands of strangers, hapless one, thou hast had those rites, and so art come to us, a little dust in a narrow urn… Ah me, ah me! O piteous dust! Alas, thou dear one, sent on a dire journey, how hast undone me,- undone me indeed, O brother mine!” — Sophocles; Electra.
Does an-y of y’all readers know what these lines are about? That's how you will feel reading these lines in the book as a matter of fact, 'cause there's no prior explanation of the story before these lines here. It needs to be explained beforehand; not all the readers know about the princess and her revenge for her father Agamemnon’s murder. Told ya many times: Feels like the author always plays a bit cocky at the end of every chapter.
(Kindle Ed. pp. 37-38)
“...Agamemnon” won first prize in 458 BCE and tells the story of his return to his wife Clytemnestra after the Trojan Wars. Clytemnestra kills him and Cassandra, the mistress he brings back with him, with her own hands, in revenge for his sacrifice of Iphigenia...Electra was Agamemnon’s daughter and Iphigenia’s sister. She had sent her beloved brother into hiding soon after Agamemnon departed for the Trojan Wars, when she suspected he might be in danger from her mother’s lover, Aegisthus. The play “Electra” deals with the revenge she takes on her mother and Aegisthus when they kill Agamemnon on his return from Troy. The extract above occurs when she is told her brother has been killed and she receives his ashes and realizes that she alone must exact the revenge.
See? These lines are supposed to be placed before the lines on pp. 34-35: A wrong format.
The following is the on[e]-ly typo I found: However is used twice.
(Kindle Ed. p. 12)
However, the most important source of information about the nature and place of Greek myths is however the work of the great dramatists of the Classical Age...
And the book ends with the best conclusion ever, so completion-wise it’s fairly a good work for a first edition.
(Kindle Ed. pp. 43-44)
It is a mistake to think that the Romans simply took over Greek mythology, though most of the Greek gods do have a Roman counterpart. The Roman gods had a very different kind of persona and the syncretization of the two beliefs involved a complex and sometimes conflicted process. Still, in 145 BCE Greece became part of the Roman Empire. I wonder what Zeus had to say about that? -
Solid introduction to the world.
Lighter than Stephen Fry’s one -
Another interesting presentation by Hourly History. Greek mythology is indeed very complex. To present in a manner that it becomes intelligible to a common reader is a difficult task. However, in this instant the complexities have been simplified and make for a fascinating read
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A concise book that outlines Greek mythology. Though it was narrated in a straightforward fashion, it did help me jog my memory about the myths!
Probably the shortest book I've read in a very long time. -
I am one happy bunny. I grew up on just this kind of stuff. definitely recommended
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Good read
This book was short but it was a good and interesting read if you like Greek mythology. Ill probably read then others too -
Good and compact
If you're looking to learn a little bit about Greek mythology in a short period of time, this will do the trick. Decent overview of the myths and well written at that. I did enjoy it, -
Mythology in a nutshell
This is an interesting and concise rundown of the Greek gods, their origins and their realms. These stories have endured the millennia along with a number of plays and poems written thousands of years ago.
5 -
Very concise. It gives a very good overview of Greek Mythology, but it is just that, there is no depth to any of the tales. There is also a few too many attempted jokes by the author which just seem out of place in this type of book. Other than that it was quite enjoyable.
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Tags: History
After the recommendation of DK public, I discoverd a new and funny brand again: Hourly History. On the other day, to read a book about constellations and corresponding English etymology, written in Chinese, I studied the Greek Mythology at first. But there are too many books than I thought, including illustrations and even academic works. I had considered some DK public books, but Greek Mythology is mainly textual at all, inducing illustarions joyous but unnecessary. And I have no plan to become an expert in Greek Mythology, so I searched "Greek Mythology concise" in Amazon and discovered this book brand finally.
Literal as Hourly History, you can pick up the subject you interested in less than an hour. Because it is so concise, all publications are made into e-books directly. The brand has published 283 books so far, involving Hilter, Cold War, Celtic Mythology and so on. According to my search in Amazon, this brand is about biography of famous people mainly, and luckily almost all books are kindleunlimited! So Hourly History is very suitable for ESL learners, like me, who are unable spend a lot of money or time in expensive and thick books to learn history due to limited conditions.
As for this book, I have spent two or three hours to read it, proving that I have a large space to improve my reading skill! However its required vocabulary is not higher than I thought. So an ESL learner who has about 7000 vocabulary can get over this book. What makes it imperfect is that it does not introduce the story of non-main roles like Medusa and Heracles. However it is enough to cover Greek Mythology at all. -
I got a hold of this book for free on Kindle via Amazon. I was searching for a general introductory book on Greek mythology to get ready to read Homer's Iliad and was pleased to come across this title which turned out to be both very accessible and manageable in terms of how long it takes to complete.
What is a myth? The sources of Greek mythology. The creation of the Universe and the Gods. The Greek Pantheon. The Trojan War. These are just some of the chapters in this well-organized and scholarly book.
The book's opening is both amusing and witty: "If you look back on the events of your day today, I am prepared to guess that you referenced Greek mythology at least twice, if not three times....did you look at your horoscope under your sign of the Zodiac? Did you work like a Spartan to catch up on some work? Was your PC at work attacked by a Trojan virus? Did you order something via Amazon.com?" Could not have said it better in terms of the enduring influence, impact and prevalence of Greek mythology in our daily lives, hundreds of years later. -
Good basic primer
A good basic primer on Greek heroic mythology. I was hoping for a lot more detail on the deities and monsters that populate Greek mythology, but for someone looking for a broad overview this book provides that type of information quite well. I am looking for detailed accounts on the Greek and especially Roman deities for a project I am working on and picked this book up in hopes of finding some of that information. -
Ridiculously detailed in places, yet skipping whole sections of the condensed myths in others, this books seems inspired in tone by Stephen Fry’s Greek mythology series, but falls far short. It does not seem to have been edited, so suffers from typos and clashing tenses throughout.
I’d have loved this to have been a light taster for someone interested in dipping a toe into the rich world of Greek gods and heroes, but I think this would send most people running in the opposite direction. -
Short & concise
The book is good to get an overview about greek mythology, the events are not in detail as it is short book as it says hourly history so it has to be concise.
Likes the book and events in it as greek myth is itself very interesting, could complete it in just one day. Greek mythology is vast, but still the author tried to put it short, which he succeeded to. & I personally really liked the book, because it was like a gist of the whole greek mythology. -
Perhaps it was my fault that I read Stephen Fry's 'Mythos' along with this. As expected, it tasted dull.
Rated four star, as it kept its promise. It's concise indeed. Just skimmed through the important informations and nothing else. Unfortunately, its zero added sugar policy didn't work for a person like me who has a terrible sweet tooth :') -
Like the Curate’s egg
In other words, good in parts.
This book is certainly a whistle stop tour of Greek history and mythology. It’s succinct, generally accurate and easy to read but spoiled by a few typos and obvious errors. Iron out those and you’ve got a useful revision guide for classics students.
