Customer Reviews (1)

same quality as Heckel's Marshals
If you liked Heckel's book "Marshals of Alexander", you will like this one too. Beth Carney writes good, short biographies of the important women that were around in Alexander's time. I might disagree on deatils with her view e.g. on Roxane, but this is a thorough, serious and especially very readable scholarly study. I have waited two years since its publication before I bought it. I wished I had not. ... Read more

Book Description
In this single-volume history, R. Malcolm Errington provides a modern account of the political and social framework of ancient Macedon. He places particular emphasis on the structure of the Macedonian state and its functioning in different stages of historical development from the sixth to the second century B.C. Errington's main emphasis is not on the biographies of the great kings but rather on the flexible political interplay between king, nobility, and people; on the growth of cities and their political function within the state; and on the development of the army as a motor of military, social, and politicalchange. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

Superb scholarly piece of work about Ancient Greek Macedonia
For all those interested in a substantiated unbiased piece of academic work about ancient Macedonia this book is nothing short of superb!

Very informative book!
This book is a very good introduction to the history of Macedonia (which, by the way, has nothing to do with the so-called Slavic country of FYROM "Macedonia" today) I found the reading enjoyable. This book is a great buy!

Great!
This is a very scholarly and wonderful book about the history of Macedonia. For those interested in Phillip II and his son Alexander the Great, this book gives a general history of the period and of the people involved.

An accurate and consice history of the Ancient Macedonians
M Errington's review is both accurate and timely, given the attempts by countries that are Greece's neighbors to usurp the name and the history of this most influential northern Greek kingdom. It is, perhaps along with U Wilckens' and N Hammond's the most fact-based. I have read it twice along with Borza's "In the Shadows of Olympus" and find it the most objective. Readers can see for themselves. Errington clearly illuminates the political
-that is what they were-differences between the Macedonians and the other Greeks. But most importantly he underscores Phillip's skillful political manoeuvres by which he outwitted the Southern Greeks and finally divided and conquered them. (The Anglo-Saxons certainly have learned from him as can be seen in the last 150 years).

Dr. Nick Papanikolaou

An excellent and accurate source of Macedonian history
Although I acquired this book by a different source than Amazon (before I discovered Amazon.com), I feel I should write a review, especially after reading the first review by the reader from NY.

This book is very well written and, I believe, will always be a great source of historical info. for myself and my daughter.

Mr. Errington's research and conclusions as to the ethnic makeup of the ancient Macedonians are not only correct they appear to be necessary in light of today's wave of self-serving history revisionism.

QUESTION #1: WHAT WAS THE LANGUAGE OF THE ANCIENT MACEDONIANS?

Here's what a couple of ancient (and obviously unbiased) sources say:

The Roman writer Titus Livius says : (from "The Foundation of the City", Paragraph 31)

"The Aitolians, the Akarnanians, the Macedonians, men of the same language, are united or disunited by trivial causes that arise from time to time; with aliens, with barbarians, all Greeks wage and will wage eternal war; for they are enemies by the will of nature, which is eternal, and not from reasons that change from day to day."

Didorus of Sicily (17.67.1) says:

(...) And the rest of the Greeks?

Pausanias writes in his book "Description of Greece" (10.3.3):

"The Phocians were deprived of their share in the Delphic sanctuary and in the Greek assembly, and their votes were given by the Amphictyons to the Macedonians."

and also in his book "Phokis" (8,2 & 4):

"They say that these were the tribes collected by Amphiktyon himself in the Hellenic Assembly: [...] the Macedonians joined and the entire Phocian race [...] In my day there were thirty members: six from each of Nikopolis, Macedonia and Thessaly [...] "

Aeschines (On the Embassy 2.32) gives evidence of the Macedonian king Amyntas taking part at the congress of the Lacedaemonian allies and the other Greeks:

"For at a congress of the Lacedaemonian allies and the other Greeks, in which Amyntas, the father of Philip, being entitled to a seat, was represented by a delegate whose vote was absolutely under his control, he joined the other Greeks in voting to help Athens to recover possession of Amphipolis. As proof of this I presented from the public records the resolution of the Greek congress and the names of those who voted".

Isocratis, one of the most impotant orators of ancient Greece says in his speach "To Philip" addressed to King Philip II of Macedonia (Paragaraph 127):

(...) The Sicilian historian Diodoros says in his history about King Philip of Macedonia (Diodoros, Historical Library 16.95.1-2)

"Such was the end of Philip, who had made himself the greatest of the kings in Europe in his time, and because of the extent of his kingdom had made himself a throned companion of the twelve gods. He had ruled twenty-four years. He is known to fame as one who with but the slenderest resources to support his claim to a throne won for himself the greatest empire in the Greek world, while the growth of his position was not due so much to his prowess in arms as to his adroitness and cordiality in diplomacy.

It is clear to see why special interest groups 'need' to separate ancient Macedonians from the rest of Greece. The new Slav Republic of "Macedonia" (FYROM), needs to establish some sort of link to the age of antiquity, in order to justify their self-proclaimed ethnic identity. It must be difficult to prove that you have some ancient local roots when your ancestors (Slavic tribes) descended on the Balkans about 800 years after the death of Alexander.

Books such as the Erringtons' are clearly needed in order to establish historical and cultural truth. Readers can simply judge for themselves.

Start with this book. ... Read more

Book Description
A stunningly-illustrated interweaving of first person narratives, photographs, cultural commentary and soundscapes, Bright Balkan Morning provides an unprecedented view of settled Romani lives in the Balkans and the unique roles of "Gypsy" instrument players in the region. These Romani instrumentalists from Iraklia, an ancient Greek Macedonian crossroads and market town that is home to about 2,000 Roma, provide the sounds that facilitate parties and rites of passage, performing an essential and highly valued service for their multicultural neighbors.

At the heart of the book are ten first-person Romani life stories. Charles and Angeliki Keil situate these personal accounts within the cultural, historical and economic setting of Greek Macedonia, and provide an overview of musical events in diverse localities. The 161 black and white photographs by Dick Blau include parades, parties, weddings and wrestling matches; portraits of the musicians and their families; studies of domestic life in the Romani neighborhood; reproductions from Romani family albums and other historic images. Steven Feld's soundscape CD features the voices and instruments of people whose stories are told in the book. Familiar sounds of markets, church, neighborhood and countryside set the context for exuberant performances at home and at parties, cafes and nightclubs.

CONTRIBUTORS: Angeliki Vellow Keil, Charles Keil, Steven Feld, Ian Hancock. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Extraordinary
This book is, in a word, extraordinary; so is the accompanying CD recording, which gives in addition to music of the Macedonian Romany people, a slice of their life in cafes and markets. One hears their daily activities, the sale of pita, and various wares, as well as juke boxes and street sounds as the Mahala awakens.

Mahala, for those unaware, is the village ghetto to which Rom people are generally confined, although the anthropologists who compiled this book do not seem to know that it is Arabic for ghetto, and the same word used in North Africa and other Middle Eastern Muslim nations to describe the Jewish and Christian ghettos in which those dhimmi groups are similarly confined. Dhimmis are the non-Muslim minorities in Muslim lands, and their treatment (and in Muslim nation remains) generally described and defined by the Islamic laws of jihad.

Unlike most other recent books about the Rom, this one contains a massive amount of research on the lives and music of these people, as they live it; but what I like the most are the oral histories that provide readers with a real sense of the hardships suffered by the Rom in Greek Macedonia. While the book mentions the great and disastrous Turkish invasion of Greece in 1922, it does not note the great massacre of an estimated 150,000 Christian Greeks and Armenians in Smyrna on the Aegean coast that year. Thisundoubtedly included some Rom, as the town was then (as now) central on the Turkish coast.

But without knowing it, the authors have demonstrated some of the ill effects of Muslim rule, for they do discuss, via oral histories, the great liberation experienced by Greek Roma in 1924, when Turks were repatriated to Turkey and 1 million Greeks from Turkey to Greece. The latter may have lost some territory, but she gained liberation from Muslim oppression.

As Greeks from Turkey poured into Greece, the town fathers in Jumaya, for example, and presumably everywhere else the Roma then lived in Greece, began to allow the Roma to go to school with Greeks. Beforehand, the Turks had imposed separation on non-Muslim peoples. But with Turks gone, Greeks exiled the old cast system too, thereby relinquishing the system that had helped imprison Greek Roma in lives without equal education. Now, suddenly, the Rom could attend the same school as everyone else.

There are many wonderful features of this book, including the photographs and the music CD at its end. But make no mistake, the oral histories are the best feature, making this one of the best books on the Rom I have read to date.

--Alyssa A. Lappen

Bright Balkan Morning = Late Chicago Night!
Last night I planned to read this book for just a few minutes before going to sleep.Hours later, instead of sleeping I was transformed into the world of the Balkan Roma musicians and their incredible culture!I simply couldn't put this amazing book down.I love the stories and interviews with the old musicians, the informative history of the Roma people and their culture, the full-of-life photos, and the CD with soundscapes.All these pieces combine to give the reader a great view of a people and their heritage, and one that has been largely overlooked in the past.I found the work ethic of the musicians described in this book to be very inspirational.To be able to play all kinds of requests for days on end is really something to admire.Musicians of any genre could learn a whole lot from reading about the musicians in this book.Years ago, these authors turned me on to the subculture of polka in the USA (and made a polkaholic out of me) with their super "Polka Happiness" book.They have clearly done it again - informed the world about an incredibly rich culture that was largely hidden from view.

Big Fat Roma Music Book
This book responds to my interest in the social context of folk music and dance. The focus was on the lives of the people who make the music, in this case the Roma of Jumaya (Iriklia) in Greek Macedonia. The writers give you quite a rounded view, describing how the music is performed, at what kinds of events, how people relate to the music and each other, how the musicians see themselves and their occupation and how making a living as a Roma musician fits into Greek society. There is also a strong sense of history and how things have changed over time in many ways - the history of Roma in Greece and other Balkan countries, the specific history of Roma in Jumaya, and the stories of individual musicians and their families. The consistently positive way that the writers approach their subject is also refreshing - they describe how Roma have used music to survive and, in some cases, prosper, and how in doing so they have contributed to the multi-layered fabric of Greek-Macedonian ethnic identities.

What is especially interesting to me is the authors' view of how multi-ethnic society works in Greek Macedonia as compared to Bulgaria or Former Yugoslavia, and how the strategy of Roma musicians is different in these different countries. In Greek Macedonia the musicians play the music of all ethnic groups in order to maximize their flexibility and income. During multi-ethnic celebrations the musicians follow a strict policy of playing everyone's requests in the order requested, so that no one feels that they have priority. There is a fascinating description of an ethnically mixed wedding where the families have to adjust their various wedding traditions to accommodate each other, making it up as they go along to some extent.

The authors compare and contrast this with the approach taken by Roma musicians in other areas of the Balkans. In Kosovo in the 1980s the Roma musicians are said to have purposely selected music from traditions from other than Serbian and Albanian in order to avoid conflicts. In Bulgaria the wedding band tradition is described as leading to a new pan-Balkan "fusion" style which borrows from many cultures but still feels Bulgarian. Ultimately the motivation behind each strategy is the need of musicians to make a living.

The book is interesting reading from a North American perspective as well.Keil contrasts the multi-ethnic consciousness of Greeks, where the same person may have several types of ethnic and national identities simultaneously, with the concept of "multiculturalism" which he describes as slices of a pizza in which there are lots of ethnicities but everyone is either one thing or another. This raise the question of what is really going on in such immigrant nations as Canada and the United States.

The accompanying CD is a potpourri of sounds, including music of various types, and there is a section of the book describing the contents of the CD. Some of the track titles are Market Day in Jumaya, Afternoon at a Mahala Café, At Home in the Mahala, New Year's Party in Serres, Taverna Party at Nikisiani.The combination of the text, the many high quality black and white photos and the soundscape are successful in putting you into the experience, as much as this is possible. There was also a nice balance between Angeliki Keil's straight-forward and very readable reporting of the lives of the musicians and Charles Keil's more theoretical musings about ethnicity, the music and the role of the musicians. My only complaint about the book is its weight - it's printed on very heavy, glossy stock, no doubt adding to the quality of photographic reproductions, but it is so big and heavy that you pretty well have to read it sitting up.An alternate title could be, "Your Big Fat Roma Music Book."

Evocative, Engrossing, Encompassing
When you get Bright Balkan Morning you are likely to open it up and then leaf through it, looking at the photographs.After a few minutes of this you'll remove the CD from the inside back cover and put it on.Then you continue looking at the photos while listening to the sounds.

That in itself is a rich and satisfying experience.But don't stop there.Read the text!

It tells of Roma (aka Gypsy) musicians who have cornered the market on live music in polyglot Greek Macedonia.While they are at the bottom of the social order, anyone who wishes a proper wedding, festival, or party of any kind hires these musicians. The musicians generally perform in trios, one playing a bass drum while the other two play the zurna - a double-reed woodwind found throughout Eurasia and Africa. Their repertoire is drawn from the peoples who live in the area, or passed through at one time, and is sometimes more Oriental, sometimes more European - whatever the customer wants.

Keil and Keil give detailed accounts of several performances - a baptism, a wedding, and a saint's day festival - tell the life stories of a dozen or so musicians & family, and recount the broad history of the Roma in the Mediterranean as well as presenting a more focused account of their sojourn in Greek Macedonia.Blau's photographs range from intimate portraits, to dancers in full party whirl, through street scenes jumbled or measured, to serene landscapes.Some of his shots are so strikingly composed - the cover image, for example - that the effect is both subjective (Blau's aesthetic) and objective (we're looking at things, out there, in the world).Steven Feld's soundscapes give us the living flow of sound. Not only do we hear the twin zurnas flying through drum rhythms, but dancing feet, shouts of joy and exertion, motors churning, sheep braying, and Stevie Wonder piped in through a tinny sound system.

Bright Balkan Morning is a milestone.See it, hear it, read it.Take pleasure in it.

THEY'LL STEAL YOUR HEART, TOO
In the rich and wonderful BRIGHT BALKAN MORNING:Romani Lives and the Power of Music in Greek Macedonia(Wesleyan University Press.Includes a CD), Charles and Angeliki Vellou Keil write of how, since the earliest days of Byzantium, commentators have remarked, sometimes positively and sometimes negatively, on the power of the Romani people to "steal your heart."With its stunning photographs by Dick Blau and its evocative CD produced by Steven Feld, this book is just one more instance of stolen hearts.The Romani, who are sometimes called gypsies, have stolen the authors' hearts and are well on their way to stealing my heart as well.

I urge you to buy this book.I say so as someone who almost never reads anything published by an academic press.I am definitely not an anthropologist or a social scientist of any kind.What I know about the raw and the cooked doesn't get very far beyond my kitchen, but I couldn't put BRIGHT BALKAN MORNING down.This book ought to be that rare thing:an academic book with popular appeal.

The easiest way into the riches of BRIGHT BALKAN MORNING are Blau's black-and-white photographs of the Romani playing their instruments for weddings, wrestling matches, and the little parades that apparently form wherever they go.When the dances started up, I have a feeling that Blau joined in, for these pictures just pulled me along.I could smell the perfume in the grandmother's handkerchief as she held it out to Blau and, through him, to me, as we all danced together.I could see the textures of the road when I took my place in the wedding parade; I could almost hear the sound of the zurna (a kind of outdoor oboe) being played in my ear.

Of course Steven Feld's CD brings the actual sounds to life.The CD begins oh so slyly by introducing Romani music emerging from the ambient sounds of twentieth-century Macedonia.The Romani are, if nothing else, great survivors of history's cultural wars, and you can hear so many diverse musical strains-from the Muslim to the techno pop.Eerily enough, the rhythm of the dauli (a two-headed bass drum) being played sounds exactly like the bass-drum pounding at a high-school football pep rally.

I wasn't as happy with the book's writing style, but then the authors seem to be wrestling with shaping this heartfelt information of theirs into all the requirements of academic publishing, and that struggle oddly mirrors the lives of the Romani.This sometimes awkward prose becomes just one more instance of the dance the Romani inspire everywhere they go as they blend in and out of the moment's culture.

--R. M. Ryan
Duncans Mills, CA ... Read more

Book Description
This digital document is an article from New Moon, published by New Moon Publishing on November 1, 2002. The length of the article is 1185 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Considering customs.
Author: Ivana Kiprijanovska
Publication: New Moon (Magazine/Journal)
Date: November 1, 2002
Publisher: New Moon Publishing
Volume: 10Issue: 2Page: 15(1)

Distributed by Thomson Gale ... Read more

Book Description
Called by Plutarch "the oldest and greatest of Alexander's successors," Antigonos the One-Eyed (382-301 BC) was the dominant figure during the first half of the Diadoch period, ruling most of the Asian territory conquered by the Macedonians during his final twenty years. Billows provides the first detailed study of this great general and administrator, establishing him as a key contributor to the Hellenistic monarchy and state. After a successful career under Philip and Alexander, Antigonos rose to power over the Asian portion of Alexander's conquests. Embittered by the persistent hostility of those who controlled the European and Egyptian parts of the empire, he tried to eliminate these opponents, an ambition which led to his final defeat in 301. In a corrective to the standard explanations of his aims, Billows shows that Antigonos was scarcely influenced by Alexander, seeking to rule West Asia and the Aegean, rather than the whole of Alexander's Empire. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

More of a military history than you might think...
For anyone interested in immersing themselves into the early Hellenistic period, this book that focuses on the life of Antigonus the One-Eyed is a good place to turn to.I expected a dry scholarly biography and was pleasantly surprised at the amount of space and detail allotted to military and naval campaigns and battles.These battles were interesting in many respects, including the fact there were clever, tactically adept Macedonian generals on either side of the battle matching wits against each other - men who had fought alongside Alexander. The book left me with a vivid impression of the wealth of the Hellenistic kings.Antigonus and the others had access to treasuries crammed with thousands of talents from which they could easily outfit armies and build fleets.

A Definitive Biography of the Most Intriguing Diadochi
This is a remarkably interesting scholarly biography of the man I've always found to be the most interesting of the Successors of Alexander.Antigonus the One-Eyed originally seemed one of the least likely of Alexander's generals to come into the dead King's inheritance, but thanksto his shrewdness, military skill, and the mistakes of others, within tenyears of Alexander's death he had taken control of two-thirds of the deadKing's former realm.Twelve years later, all of the other Successorsunited against him in a great coalition, and Antigonus went down fighting(at the age of 80) at the Battle of Ipsus in 301 B.C.The ancients sawAntigonus's life as a cautionary tale about the dangers of hubris andvaulting ambition; Billows takes a more positive view.

If yourinterest in this book comes from the standpoint of an ancient history buffrather than an academic, you should understand that Billows's book startedout life as a dissertation, and it's really two books in one.The firstbook -- which consists of the first 190 pages -- is essentially awell-researched biography that treats Antigonus's life and career inchronological order.The second book -- consisting of the last 120 pages-- treats Antogonus's foreign relations, economic and social policies,etc., and will be of more interest and utility to scholars.Billows arguesthat Antigonus should be better known not merely because of his dramaticlife story and his status as the founder of the Antigonid line thateventually ruled Macedon from 277-167 B.C., but also because he laid thefoundations upon which Seleucus I built the Seleucid Empire.It seems tome there is some truth to this, but Billows may push the argument fartherthan it can really be sustained, given that Antigonus controlled largeswatches of the area that became the Seleucid Empire for as little as fiveor six years.

The University of California Press is to be commended forincluding excellent maps of the vast area of the Middle East across whichAntigonus played out his life story, as well as including detailed plans ofsuch Diadochoi battles as Paraitakene, Gabiene, and Gaza that show thecomposition of the rival armies in detail.The account of Antigonus'sdramatic struggle with the wily Eumenes of Cardia -- a running series ofbattles and campaigns fought over a huge stretch of the Middle East -- is ahigh point of the book.Finally, the detailed bibliography in Billows'sbook will point the scholar or ancient history buff to numerous otherreferences and scholarly discussions of individual battles and commanders. ... Read more

Book Description
In one of the most important contributions to the study of Roman imperialism to appear in recent years, Robert Kallet-Marx argues for a less simplistic, more fluid understanding of the evolution of Roman power in the Balkans, Greece, and Asia Minor. He distinguishes between hegemony--the ability of the Romans to command obedience on the basis of a real or implied military threat--and the later phenomenon of empire, demonstrating that Roman imperium was not the result of the sudden imposition of geographically defined provinces or permanent armies. Rather, the integration of the Greek world into a Roman imperial system was a complex process of evolution requiring mutual adaptation by both Romans and Greeks. ... Read more

Product Description
Fine- to Fine Trade Softcover with French Flaps. Strong Binding. Excellent Illustrations and Descriptions of Macedonian Artifacts, etc. Descriptions are in English and Greek. 418 pp. Contents are perfect. Exterior Shows Some but very acceptable wear. Collectible!! ... Read more