Hard to follow

I don’t know if it’s the writing style, the narration, or both, but this is a hard book to follow for what is an interesting topic

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Great book, Athens still did most of the job

Great book, excellent description of the events, however it did not change my kind as to the fact that Athens was mostly responsible for the victory on the Persian wars

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Interesting fascinating and informative

First of I must thank the narrator for his clarity of diction of all the names.
I had only previously dipped into accounts of Persian history, mainly the accounts of Alexander. I found this history absolutely riveting and I do feel that more respect and circumspection should be paid to the Iranians. People do not forget their history even though it would be wise to take it all on board not just the adulation and the seeming glory. That is what I particularly liked about this. There was a balance and having recently dipped into the English Civil War there is little new under the sun. Technology is the big difference. But I doubt if it really deters.

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chock full of facts and details

I am amazed that so much detail is available 2500 years after these events.
I understand that there may be some questions even controversy over some of these facts and the author makes this clear in his many comments on the respective sources.

I definitely feel that I have a better understanding of Laconia, Sparta and Persia after this book.

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Excellent use of all the major sources

Everyone who studies the Persian Wars even cursorily will know Herodotus and probably the much later encyclopaedist Diodorus Siculus, but the use of Aeschylus’ roughly contemporaneous dramas, and the later secondary Cornelius Nepos, Ammianus Marcellinus, even Justin, really enlivens this account and allows for the production of some interesting takes of key moments in the story. I use the term story deliberately, because this has dramatic twists and turns, moments of high tension, political skulduggery and plenty more, which makes it quite a thrilling listen.

The listening experience is only marginally impaired by the truly perverse pronunciations of the narrator. The bizarre pronunciation of Chersonesos reminded me of the old taunt, used against John Prescott, “I don’t think language is his first language”. There are many other examples. Oddly the same mystifying pronunciation of Decelea as Desealia as in an audiobook about Ancient Thebes by Paul Cartledge. Ah well. Can’t have everything I suppose.

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3 people found this helpful

Well written but terrible sound editing

Extremely interesting and well read but clearly, they have left gaps for place names which have then been extremely badly edited in afterwards which make it terribly jarring. I have no idea why they did this.

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2 people found this helpful

Good book bad narrator

Terrible pronunciation and lack of understanding from narrator. Like Joey from Friends tying to read.

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2 people found this helpful

Drivel

A wonderful epic story reduced to babbling incoherence. 99 per cent padding plus one per cent garbled mis pronounciation. Rubbish.

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There's a reason it's free

As most of the other reviewers have noted, the big thing that lets this obvious work of serious scholarship down is the reading, which I found comically poor. The reading itself is painfully slow in any case, which makes it hard to focus on (I listened at 1.4x speed) and the reader is clearly not well briefed on the subject matter or subject-specific terminology, frequently leaving big gaps before unfamiliar words, followed by humourously minced attempts at pronunciation.
The work itself is probably mistitled, as it doesn't really analyse strategy so much as narrate historical events. Still, it is clear that a lot of work went into it's research. So it is a pity that this audio version is so distracting. I found it very hard to take anything from it because I became so focused on listening out for the next ridiculous pronunciation.

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1 person found this helpful

Terrible pronunciation.

The pronunciation is so bad it makes it very difficult to listen to this audio book. It is so bad if this title was not free I would be requesting a refund.

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