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Appearances and Interviews | Reviews and Notices

Reviews and Notices

The Italian translation of Salamis is out! It's called La Forza e l'astuzia and it was just published by Laterza.

The Weekly Standard (December 12, 2005):
“A few pages into The Battle of Salamis, however, and I was enthralled. Strauss's book is a gripping account….”

The Dawn (Karachi, Pakistan, December 18, 2005):
“Barry Strauss has no doubt made the history of the Persian wars accessible to the common reader. … This is not only a favour to the common reader but to Herodotus too.”

www.rogersimon.com (November 2005):
“Paperback Pick of the Month: ‘The Battle of Salamis’ by Barry Strauss. (It's about a sea battle between the Greeks and the Persians in 450 BC, not warring luncheon meats.)”

www.thegreekwarriors.com:
“Strauss has captured the very feel of what it was like to be in the battle of Salamis.”

Battle of Salamis is recommended in Nancy Pearl's More Book Lust: Recommended Reading for Every Mood, Moment, and Reason (2005)

Military Heritage Magazine (August 2005): This is an action packed and adventure filled "dramatic story of the maritime engagement that routed the Persian Empire and made possible modern democracy."

New York Times Book Review Sunday 7 August 2005 under "New in Paperback":
The Battle of Salamis: The Naval Encounter That Saved Greece -- and Western Civilization, by Barry Strauss (Simon & Schuster). Strauss' informative account of the Salamis Straits battle in 480 B.C. between Greece and Persia expands Herodotus' classic telling with maps of naval maneuvers and descriptions of society and warfare in the ancient world.

Kirkus Reviews, starred review
"First-rate military and political history, focusing on a critically important battle of the ancient past. … Strauss's reconstruction of the events of naval and classical history overflows with detail and writerly attention to a grand story."

Military History, March/April 2005
“an excellent, literate retelling of the famous clash of Greek and Persian fleets in 480 B.C.”

To Vima, Athens, Greece, March 13, 2005
“…pioneering research….”

brothersjudd.com
“It would be enough to be instructed about this important piece of our past, but Mr. Strauss turns history into a ripping adventure yarn as well. It is a fantastic book.”

practical.org
“Strauss knows how to capture the imagination and refuse to let go. This is a great book for those who want to understand this most important of battles.”

booklinker
“Strauss has written a crackling good history that is well worth your time.”

The Virginian-Pilot (Norfolk, Va.)
The Battle of Salamis is a modern classic. Based on ancient histories, plays and art, and incorporating the latest in naval archaeology, this book has it all: a significant historical event, a superb cast of characters and excellent technical descriptions of key military hardware.

Parameters, US Army War College Quarterly
Strauss uses individuals ... to tell the story. These players add the human interest that turns a simple narrative into a great and engaging tale. The result is a manuscript based on the solid scholarship of good history with the readability of a good novel.

School Library Journal
In addition to being an engrossing story of an improbable battle, this book is an excellent, compact study of daily life in the fifth century.

Strauss provides a well-written, insightful, careful analysis of Xerxes the Persian's campaign against Greece in 480 BCE." CHOICE, February 2005.

"This extensive and meticulous research base forms the foundation for marvelously intriguing details threaded together by dynamic storytelling that will have you believing that you too are in the midst of the battle."
--The Hellenic Society Prometheas Newsletter

The Greek edition of The Battle of Salamis is out!
I Navmakhia tis Salaminas. Athens: Livani Publishing Organization, 2005.
Link to purchase

Washington Post Names Battle of Salamis one of the Best Books of 2004

Interview in Odyssey: The World of Greece Magazine, November/December 2004 Issue

Conservative Monitor
“‘The Battle of Salamis’ is a fun page-turner for any fan of history. It belongs on the historian's library shelf somewhere between Christian Meier's ‘Caesar’ and Michael Grant's ‘The Classical Greeks’.”

Enter Stage Right
“a rousing and engaging history of the battle, marshaling a considerable amount of research into effectively recreating the battle as if it had happened only a few years ago, not two and a half millennia previously.”

Greek News
"Because Strauss is such an articulate writer and a natural storyteller with a special gift for colorful description (rare, if not nonexistent in history books), this complex, highly detailed account of war, politics, and personalities, flows like a novel."

row2k
"The clever tactics and intrigues of the Athenian admiral Themistocles make the book read with all the flair of an espionage thriller."

Cornell Chronicle
"With all these elements, it's easy to see the appeal of Salamis as both historical set piece and heroic seafaring thriller. And Strauss didn't simply wish to pen another military history of the battle of Salamis; he wanted to bring entirely new scholarship into the court of memory, drawing on nautical science, archaeology, forensic anthropology and meteorology, among other specialties -- in short, all the latest advances in the field of classical history."

Flint (Michigan) Journal
"There's enough conflict, drama, and fascinating characters in this book to fill a summer playbill at Stratford."

Chicago Tribune
Reprints the Boston Globe’s review.

Boston Globe
"In the hands of Cornell University historian Barry Strauss, the story of the battle is a military epic of the first order. ... What captures the reader's imagination is how vividly Strauss brings forward the events of 2,500 years ago, breathing life into the men -- and one warrior queen -- involved in them."

MHQ, The Quarterly Journal of Military History
Read Barry's cover story on the battle of Thermopylae in the Autumn 2004 issue: "Go Tell the Spartans" (Volume 17, Number 1: 16-25).

The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
"U.S. scholar Strauss, an expert on ancient warfare, takes a breezy, novelistic approach to this 480 BC naval battle."

Navy League of the United States
"This is not only a great book about an ancient sea battle, but a cleverly molded history lesson about the distant past of Western philosophy and democratic principles."

The Advocate (Stamford, CT)
"Barry Strauss' recent "The Battle of Salamis," a readable, straightforward account, makes it clear that leadership was hard to assert and that factionalism nearly ruined the Greeks."

Air Safety Week
In "Sleepless at Salamis," an article on the lessons of the Battle of Salamis for the study of human fatigue in pilots today, the editor concludes of Barry's book that "The object lesson is timeless: when judgment and performance need to be at their peak, sleep counts" (August 23, 2004, vol. 18 No. 33: 8).

Arion, A Journal of Humanities and the Classics
Read "Flames Over Athens," a selection from The Battle of Salamis (Third Series, vol. 12, no. 1, Spring/Summer 2004: 101-116.)

The Boston Globe
The Battle of the Salamis is the subject of a piece by "Ideas" section columnist Chris Shea.

Proceedings Magazine (U.S. Naval Institute)
"Anyone who has wrestled with the ponderous scholarly studies of classical civilization will relish the colloquial ease with which naval historian Barry Strauss writes. ... Strauss recalls the angry prebattle councils with the clarity of a reporter who might actually have been there. When his story reaches the battle itself, he brings to life the loud confusion of the clash, the sweating oarsmen, and the bronze-beaked boats with their skilled steersmen intent on ramming the enemy."

Philadelphia Inquirer
"Writers of maritime history sometimes founder by either erring on the side of minutiae or by being too general. Barry Strauss avoids both these perils. A professor of history and classics at Cornell, Strauss certainly knows his stuff. Moreover, he supplements his generally smooth writing style with good maps, an easily understood timetable, a fine bibliographic essay, and notes that clearly explain the types of vessels used in the battle for the neophyte and naval historian alike."

Seattle Times
[NOTE: requires registration]
"Strauss brings an event that occurred almost 2,500 years ago to life. When the world celebrates the Olympics in Athens this month – sadly, now a festival of peaceful competition occurring without suspension of wars – the nearby site of that momentous daylong battle may be visible from high ground if the air is unusually clear."

Bryn Mawr Classical Review
"Strauss has connected the abstract meaning of the war to its concrete reality: a sweaty, desperate effort in which over 100,000 men crammed into their ships, readied their oars, and rowed for their lives."

Bloomberg
"Strauss tells an engrossing, fast-paced story. His erudition is wide-ranging and impressive. He is particularly good on the military nitty-gritty: his opening note about the Greek triremes -- galleys with three banks of oars -- is a masterpiece. ... He also has a knack for bringing alive the personalities of his protagonists…."

The Washington Post
"But Salamis was no easy victory, and this account of it by a history professor who is an expert on naval warfare with a gift for vivid narrative brings it, in all its suspense, its complications, its surprises and its cast of extraordinary characters, to fervent and turbulent life."

Publisher's Weekly
"[Strauss's] combination of erudite scholarship, well-paced storytelling and vivid color commentary make this an appealing popular history for the general reader."

Booklist, starred review
"In compelling fashion, Strauss imaginatively accentuates the local geography and the experience of battle; however, he is most evocative when outlining the strategic thought of the leaders, Xerxes for the Persian Empire and Themistocles for the Hellenic alliance."

Willamette Week Online, Portland's News Weekly
"Barry Strauss demystifies this ancient battle, juggling conflicting ancient sources like Herodotus and Aeschylus with modern speculation to make the Greek victory at Salamis seem not so surprising after all."