Greek history

I will start this review with a major development for the study of ancient Greek history: the publication of the first volume of the Oxford History of the Archaic Greek World (OHAGW), edited by Paul Cartledge and Paul Christesen. The range of the available evidence can no longer keep pace with the theoretical frameworks and the syntheses of individual scholars. A huge part of the evidence remains known to a few specialists, while wider interpretative frameworks rarely make the effort to incorporate the diversity and complexity of the evidence. Big data digital projects are certainly one way forward; the editors of OHAGW have chosen an alternative path: to offer a collection of syntheses on the archaic history of thirty Greek communities for which the available evidence makes this possible. The adoption of a common format for all local syntheses will make possible the focused comparison between individual cases; alongside the serious effort to systematically combine archaeology and history, which OHAGW editors call ‘archaeohistory’, this project has the potential to revolutionise Greek history.