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The World of Odysseus (New York Review Books Classics) Paperback – August 10, 2002

by M. I. Finley (Author), Bernard Knox (Introduction)
4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 90 ratings
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The World of Odysseus is a concise and penetrating account of the society that gave birth to the Iliad and the Odyssey--a book that provides a vivid picture of the Greek Dark Ages, its men and women, works and days, morals and values. Long celebrated as a pathbreaking achievement in the social history of the ancient world, M.I. Finley's brilliant study remains, as classicist Bernard Knox notes in his introduction to this new edition, "as indispensable to the professional as it is accessible to the general reader"--a fundamental companion for students of Homer and Homeric Greece.
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  1. Print length
    224 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    NYRB Classics
  4. Publication date
    August 10, 2002
  5. Dimensions
    4.97 x 0.48 x 7.98 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    1590170172
  7. ISBN-13
    978-1590170175
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

M. I. Finley (1912-1986), the son of Nathan Finkelstein and Anna Katzellenbogen, was born in New York City. He graduated from Syracuse University at the age of fifteen and received an MA in public law from Columbia, before turning to the study of ancient history. During the thirties, Finley taught at Columbia and City College and developed an interest in the sociology of the ancient world that was shaped in part by his association with members of the Frankfurt School who were working in exile in America. In 1952, when he was teaching at Rutgers, Finley was summoned before the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee and asked whether he had ever been a member of the Communist Party. He refused to answer, invoking the Fifth Amendment; by the end of the year he had been fired from the university by a unanimous vote of its trustees. Unable to find work in the US, Finley moved to England, where he taught for many years at Cambridge, helping to redirect the focus of classical education from a narrow emphasis on philology to a wider concern with culture, economics, and society. He became a British subject in 1962 and was knighted in 1979. Among Finley’s best-known works are The Ancient Economy, Ancient Slavery and Modern Ideology, and The World of Odysseus.

Bernard Knox (1914–2010) was an English classicist. He was the first director of Harvard’s Center for Hellenic Studies in Washington, DC. Among his many books are The Heroic Temper, The Oldest Dead White European Males, and Backing into the Future: The Classical Tradition and Its Renewal. He is the editor of The Norton Book of Classical Literature and wrote the introductions and notes for Robert Fagles’s translations of the Iliad and the Odyssey.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ NYRB Classics; 4th printing edition (August 10, 2002)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 224 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1590170172
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1590170175
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 8.3 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 4.97 x 0.48 x 7.98 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 90 ratings

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M. I. Finley

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Customer reviews

4.6 out of 5 stars
4.6 out of 5
90 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Dave (D.J.) Butler
5.0 out of 5 stars The Anthropology of Homer
Reviewed in the United States on November 6, 2002
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Finley only briefly ventures into archaeology in the beginning of _The World of Odysseus_, and only to demonstrate that Mycenean Greece is not the world of the Homeric heroes. From this conclusion he guesses that Homer is likely describing a world that existed between the Mycenean era and the poet's own time.
Finley then goes literary, eschewing anthropology and archaeology and instead analyzing the texts of the Iliad and the Odyssey. From the stories of Homer, he reconstructs the sort of society in the Homeric heroes lived, in terms of its economy, its social structure, and its morals and values.
The picture he draws is interesting and compelling, above all because it is consistent. Its consistency is, of course, an argument in favor of the view that the Homeric world really did exist (i.e., that gods and magic and specific names aside, the cultural world described by Homer is authentic, and not an artistic creation). Moreover, because the culture is consistent, an understanding of it helps a reader to interpret sometimes puzzling actions on the part of Homer's heroes. This is therefore important secondary reading to accompany any reading of Homer.
54 people found this helpful
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Brontina
5.0 out of 5 stars Interesting and informative
Reviewed in the United States on March 6, 2013
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I am reading this book while re-reading the works of Homer and it is extremely helpful. This book provides lots of information and insights on social relationships, customs, economy in ancient Greece. It is helping me better understand literature that I love and the world in which its heroes moved and interacted with each other. Great reading! You can tell that the author has an immense knowledge of the era, but is able to convey it in a light, easy-to-access way. I would suggest this book to anyone interested in ancient Greek culture.
6 people found this helpful
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Rotpeter
4.0 out of 5 stars An Excellent "Epilogue" to Homer
Reviewed in the United States on March 14, 2004
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Reading Finley immediately after you finish Homer allows you to revisit the epics' individual passages and tie them into coherent themes. Finley's discussion of the Greek household, or oikos, is especially good, as are his insights on giftgiving. The world that Homer sang of is a stark contrast to the more familiar, Classical Greece, and yet the seeds of that Greece (and hence our world) are already recognizably there. Perhaps they are there in a truer, less alloyed form.

The only regrettable part of this book is the second appendix, a speech that Finley later gave on Schliemann. It is full of such professional bitterness that one begins to doubt Finley's decency. The publisher produced a gem of a book, but it should seriously consider removing these few pages in future editions.
39 people found this helpful
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Gary Steffen
5.0 out of 5 stars The World of Odysseus is a great book!
Reviewed in the United States on February 28, 2011
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The World of Odysseus by M.I. Finley is considered a classic about Bronze Age Greece, and it is. And with an introduction by Bernard Knox is always interesting. Prof. Finley is very such of his evaluations about the Greek Bronze Age and definately so about Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, and who might have written it. I am sure that camp about the Greeks and Homer are divided between those who agree and those who don't. I find much in his argument to agree with.
One person found this helpful
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Reader
5.0 out of 5 stars Great Introduction
Reviewed in the United States on June 9, 2017
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I read this, of course, in conjunction with The Iliad and The Odyssey. As you would expect from the title, this book is a great introduction for anyone who wants to learn more about the world that Homer lived in. Its easy readability makes it a pleasure to read, and it definitely enhances your understanding of The Iliad and The Odyssey.
5 people found this helpful
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barkeater
5.0 out of 5 stars Great supplement to the text itself.
Reviewed in the United States on November 13, 2015
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Originally published in 1954, revised in 1978, this little book is both interesting and pretty damned thorough. Knox's introduction is, like all his work, first class. If "The Odyssey" for you is more than some cool stories, you should read this book.
4 people found this helpful
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Yaakov Ben Shalom
3.0 out of 5 stars An introduction to the world of Homer
Reviewed in the United States on January 2, 2024
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It's important to understand what this book is and what it is not. I expected a social history or anthropological description of Mycenae and the world of the early ancient Greeks from the era of the Trojan War. That's not what this book is.

Finley makes the argument that the society described by Homer is NOT the world of the Mycenaeans, who lived several hundred years before Homer, but rather Greek society about 100 years before Homer's lifetime. Homer didn't really know about the Mycenaeans' world and transposed onto them (or onto his history of them) the social conditions that prevailed among the Greeks a few generations before his own, which would have been known to him.

So the world of Odysseus per Homer is not the Hellenic world in the 12th century BC. It's era just before Homer's own time.

Also, this book almost entirely looks at the world of elites and largely looks at men. This is because there is a dearth of sources on how ordinary people lived and female perspectives.
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Bauler-Sasson
5.0 out of 5 stars Honest description of item
Reviewed in the United States on February 14, 2020
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Thank you. Exact edition I was looking for.
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Top reviews from other countries

Charles Vasey
5.0 out of 5 stars The World of Homer
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 30, 2014
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This is a very interesting attempt by a distinguished historian to imagine the era of Homer by looking at how he, in turn, imagined the Heroic Age to have been: much as the Arthurian legend tells us more about the Middle Ages or Victorian England than Romano-British cavalry armies. As such it is little to do with the world of wily Odysseus but rather that of Homer's listeners or readers, so if you were hoping for a chat about Linear B and the Trojan War you will be sadly disillusioned. However, as a discussion of the ethos of warrior societies, of how legends grow and how heroes like to be seen (as against how they are) I doubt this account can be bettered
7 people found this helpful
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CANCEL Do not show name.
5.0 out of 5 stars Classic work of scholarship on a Greek classic
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 17, 2021
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This book is a classic in its field; it has held
that position for many years and will continue
to do so. I am using it as a reference point
in a group of readers, some with professional
qualifications in the classics, but who are all
meeting to read for pleasure.
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Robin de Wilde
5.0 out of 5 stars Classic by a great scholar
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 13, 2018
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This is a classic, written by a great scholar and it offers so many insights into this area, that I am grateful that I purchased it.
One person found this helpful
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Haz burton
5.0 out of 5 stars Absolutely brilliant. I wish I had had this companion book ...
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 14, 2015
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Absolutely brilliant. I wish I had had this companion book when I was studying Classical Civilisation, it can be read alone or it can be read with an intent to fill in your gaps.
2 people found this helpful
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David
3.0 out of 5 stars Three Stars
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 12, 2016
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Good bookseller service but I would not buy it again. A library book really.
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