Persian Fire is entertaining and brilliantly executed. The effect more than justifies his approach. Making imaginative leaps, he enters the mindset of each faction if at times he appears too sympathetic with the Spartans in their cold-blooded cruelty, the Athenians in their manipulations and the Persians in their relentless imperialism, Holland can plead that he is simply reflecting the attitudes of the time. Even in convoluted moments of double-dealing and triple-guessing, Holland keeps the light of clarity burning. Holland is evidently a virtuoso, for he manages from decidedly Spartan materials to weave a tapestry rich enough to please a Persian king.īut we do not come away overburdened. He cites Iris Murdoch, who likened early Greek history to a game 'with very few pieces, where the skill of the player lies in complicating the rules'. The problem with Herodotus and his area of study is, as Holland warns, the dearth of verifiable fact. The question has been posed endlessly since September 2001: 'Why do they hate us?' When did the fault-lines between the Arab and Western worlds open up? The answers, according to Holland, lie in the stirrings of history, and Herodotus became the world's first historian in a bid to resolve such queries. Not long ago, 'East-West divide' spoke of tensions between communist and capitalist states, but in this century the original, ancient meanings have been reinstated through force.
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