THE BEST BOOK OF ANCIENT GREECE

The title is as wrong as it is self-congratulatory. Combining statements that range from ludicrous—“No one knows exactly what happened during the Dark Ages. We think that people no longer learned to read or write, and that is why they did not keep written records”—to merely vague or contradictory (did the Mycenaeans inhabit one city, or several? Depends on the page.) with often-indistinct paintings featuring views of generic, discreetly posed men, women and gods, this scattershot survey ranks well below the likes of Anne Pearson’s Ancient Greece (rev. ed., 2004), Kim Covert’s Ancient Greece (2004), or the plethora of similar assignment titles. (Nonfiction. 8-10)