Mmm, history...

My first week as a grad student, Prof. K assigned both Herodotus and Thucydides for us to read and come back to discuss the next week. (Um, right. So I made it about 1/3 to 1/2 through each. Isn't 600 pages for one class as a baby grad student enough???) And then school got crazy - and then I left - and I've never finished reading them. I want to though! And after reading Daniel Mendelsohn's recent New Yorker article on Herodotus I might even find the wherewithal to do so.

First off, most awesome depiction of H ever: he was "like having an embarrassing parent along on a family vacation. All you wanted to do was put some distance between yourself and him, loaded down as he was with his guidebooks, the old Brownie camera, the gimcrack souvenirs—and, of course, that flowered polyester shirt." (Mendelsohn and co. originally preferred Thucydides. I, on the other hand, hate all that on vacations but LOVE it in my histories.)

Anyway, the article is awesome; it makes me want to go back to the books soon soon soon, and even compares H's style to that of "War & Peace" and the events covered to America's current escapades in the Middle East. So look for some ancient history coming to this blog sometime this summer...