GREECE: The Magic Spring

The author of Spain: The Root and the Flower (1963) takes on Greece from 3000 B. C. Crete to twentieth century coups and it's a lively contest all the way. Professor Crow's energetic enjoyment of his subject has resulted in a chatty readable style with offhand sparklers, cloudy though appealing generalizations and some rum metaphor. (On viewing the Acropolis: one ""will embrace his own roots and look into the bottomless well of his past and will feel that this experience is a window on all time."") But Dr. Crow possesses a remarkable ability to race through the centuries with ease and spirit, catching up prime movers and characteristics of cultural blossoming and withering, pausing to illuminate touchstones of Greek literature, art and philosophy with varying degrees of acuity, rushing in where the vast, unread horde of scholars fear to tread. A freshman course -- bumptious perhaps but immensely entertaining and balm for those who had trouble passing Ancient History.