Thermopylae : Great Battles

by: Carey, Chr.

Price: 22,45 EURO

(in stock)

Thermopylae
Great Battles
Chris Carey
Great Battles
The Great Battles Series. The story of the world's most important battles—how they were fought, how they have been commemorated, and the long historical shadows that they have cast.
The story of Thermopylae—the famous last stand of the severely outnumbered Greek army, which went on to be immortalised in myth and in Hollywood.
Considers the events of the battle itself, as well as the difficulty of approaching the evidence of a classical event from a modern standpoint.
How the battle has been remembered, from the immediate aftermath to the present day—and what this tells us.

Description
During the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 BC, a Greek force of approximately 7,000 faced the biggest army ever seen in the Greek peninsula. For three days, the Persians—the greatest military force in the world—were stopped in their tracks by a vastly inferior force, before the bulk of the Greek army was forced to retreat with their rear guard wiped out in one of history's most famous last stands.

In strict military terms it was a defeat for the Greeks. But like the British retreat from Dunkirk or the massacre at the Alamo, this David and Goliath story has taken on the aura of success. Thermopylae has acquired a glamour exceeding the other battles of the Persian Wars, passing from history into myth, and lost none of that appeal in the modern era.

In Thermopylae, Chris Carey analyses the origins and course of this pivotal battle, as well as the challenges facing the historians who attempt to separate fact from myth and make sense of an event with an absence of hard evidence. Carey also considers Thermopylae's cultural legacy, from its absorbtion into Greek and Roman oratorical traditions, to its influence over modern literature, poetry, public monuments, and mainstream Hollywood movies. This new volume in the Great Battles series offers an innovative view of a battle whose legacy has overtaken its real life practical outcomes, but which showed that a seemingly unstoppable force could be resisted.

Table of Contents
Preface
Introduction
1:Reading Thermopylae: The problems
2:The Pass
3:The Persians
4:The Greeks
5:The Battle
6:Thermopylae Refought
7:Thermopylae in the Ancient World
8:The Myth in the Modern Era
9:And finally...
Notes
Further Reading
Index

Thermopylae : Great Battles

by: Carey, Chr.

• ISBN-13: 9780198754107 / 978-0-19-875410-7
• ISBN-03: 0198754108 / 0-19-875410-8
• Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2019

Price: 22,45 EURO

(in stock)