Barry Cunliffe, The extraordinary voyage of Pytheas the Greek
A really good history. Cunliffe reconstructs the voyage of Pytheas in c330BC to the British Isles and Iceland. In order to set it in context, he describes the Greek Mediterranean world, explains how traditional navigation worked, why anyone would want to leave the safe, familiar, warm Mediterranean for the cold, rainy, unknown North (Tin and amber) and why those substances were needed. A combination of story-telling and investigation - proper history!
No comments:
Post a Comment