Informative

This set of lectures is a very good way to learn about Ancient Greece. The lecturer is good.

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Informative and fun

A brilliant introduction to ancient greek history. Cline manages to make something so distant from modern life relateable.

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Widescreen history

This is a great series isn't it? I've yet to find one of the Modern Scholar releases that doesn't show the spoken word format off at its best. Once again we have a deeply informed academic with an engaging and enthusiastic style offering a gripping overview of a subject which I thought I knew something about but on which it turns out I was pretty ignorant. This is big picture history spanning hundreds of years and huge swathes of the ancient world but Prof Cline keeps the story clipping along with a nice mixture of fine detail and broader analysis.

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easier than I thought

I haven't always enjoyed the lecture format of 'modern scholar'- usually they have been good on content but rather difficult listening.



Eric Cline, however was very easy listening- but this was possibly because I knew the topic- or did a few years ago- and downloaded this series as a revision course before a trip to Greece. For that purpose it was excellent.

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Great book

Really enjoyed this, I was expecting it to be a bit boring and very academic but I flew through it in a few days and found it really easy to listen to and informative. Very well written and great performance

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Very well read, informative and easily understandable

I very much enjoyed listening to these lectures. Thanks to this I now know a good deal about Ancient Greece.

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Very listenable and great content

One of the better Modern Scholar presentations. Not only an interesting subject (no prior knowledge required) but well read too.

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Disappointing

I was very disappointed with this lecture series.
Firstly, the presentation is very dull; Cline does not speak with any enthusiasm, droning on as if he's bored by his own script. He includes quotations from sources which are too long; if you're going to be quoting for more than a minute, in a lecture format you're better off summarising. The quotes, in addition, were not always well-chosen - for example, when you're attempting to cover so much in 8 hours, why read a long description of the symptoms of the Athenian plague?
This brings me onto my gripe with the overall selection of material in the course. 8 hours go from prehistory to the Hellenistic period results in a course which completely lacks in depth, and Cline does not use his time effectively - for example, he spends the same amount of time on the Trojan War, an event shrouded in myth, as he does on the vastly better-documented Peloponnesian War. The reason Cline does this is obvious: by training, he is an archaeologist, and is therefore very familiar with the excavations at Troy. Now, whilst it may seem foolish of me to cast doubt on Cline's credentials to teach this course, I am so dissatisfied that I must do so.
Cline's area of expertise does not extend to Greek History beyond the 'dark age', and indeed he does not have a record of publication on Classical or Hellenistic Greece. This shows throughout the course, as he has a very shallow understanding of events. For example, he states that Pericles deliberately tried to bring on the Peloponnesian War - definitely a matter of interpretation which should not be stated as fact. He speaks at length about the stories of Cyrus's childhood and Solon's meeting with Croesus, presenting them as if they are part of the historical narrative when they are legendary stories (Solon and Croesus don't even overlap chronologically, for instance). Further, he does not use this extended exposition of these stories to make a point about the development of historiography, making them even more questionable inclusions in the course. Several times, Cline suggests that Spartan society might reasonably be called Communistic or Socialistic - completely inappropriate and anachronistic concepts. Repeatedly, Cline seems to miss the point, or deliver information which he fails to relate to the subject at hand. He even discusses the Roman Emperor Nero's participation in the Olympics and some of the events of his reign - it's as if his mind has completely wandered off on a tangent!
If I recommended this course to any newcomer to Greek history, I would not feel that I was putting them in a safe scholarly pair of hands. This is my first Modern Scholar course, but it has disappointed me in comparison to the Great Courses lectures I have previously seen. I will perhaps try a different Modern Scholar course after checking that the lecturer is working with his specific area of expertise.

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2 people found this helpful