“The poetry of history does not consist of imagination roaming at large , but of imagination pursuing the fact and fastening upon it……The dead were and are not.Their place knows them no more, and is ours today.Yet they were once real as we , and we shall tomorrow be shadows like them…” G M Trevelyan ,Autobiography and Other Essays.
You are greeted by the words above as you open the book .
Justin Marozzi started reading history when there was nothing else left for him to study. Years later when he picked up the “Histories”, curious to read a man whose name had a forbidden ring to it ……he was instantly hooked. The author writes about his travels through Egypt, Turkey. Iraq ,Greece in an attempt to follow the Herodotean trail. The introductory chapter is about the Histories and more about the author’s fascination with Herodotus the man ,the travel writer the anthropologist, political theorist, foreign correspondent and historian. Herodotus invented the West which was conceived at Marathon and saw the light of the day with the Persian defeat in the battle of Platae. Marozzi describes him as the literary midwife .The author begins his voyage with Bodrum the hometown of Herodotus. Modern Bodrum a modern resort town is more European than Greek. In Bodrum the author visits the famous site of the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus .The British archaeologist Charles Newton was instrumental in discovering the remains of the remarkable building and then transporting back the treasures to British Museum. The author comments “The British have form when it comes to digging up ruins all over the world and then taking the best pieces back to Britain”.
Marozzi moves between the past and present while writing about his travels through the different cities. He writes about the various contemporary political and social conflicts existing amongst these nations and countries like America and other neighbouring states . The grim situation in War torn Iraq, the centrality of the orthodox Church in Greek life, the illegal homosexual practices in Siwa, the frequent hymen repair jobs done in Egypt - the book is replete with engaging stories and descriptions that keep the readers interests alive throughout the book.
I personally enjoyed his descriptions of the past and his references to the Histories. Read this for example on “a morbid custom at plutocratic Egyptian dinners . When the rich give a party and the meal is finished a man carries round amongst the guests a wooden image of a corpse in a coffin ,…. he shows it to each guest in turn and says look upon this body as you drink and enjoy yourself for you will be just like it when you are dead”
An enjoyable read.
ref:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Man-Who-Invented-History/dp/0719567114
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