The Man Who Invented History : Travels with Herodotus

During the classical age of Greece, Herodotus wrote the first history text. But what he created was much more than this. Informed by his own travels, his historical work digresses more than it chronicles, with tales of the lands and peoples he visited. As Michael Ondaatje once famously suggested, “What you find in him are the cul-de-sacs within the sweep of history.” In The Way of Herodotus, intrepid travel historian Justin Marozzi retraces the footsteps of Herodotus through the Mediterranean and the Middle East, examining his 2,500-year-old observations about the cultures and places he visited, and finding echoes of his legacy reverberating to this day. It is a lively yet thought-provoking excursion into the world of Herodotus, with the man who invented history ever-present, guiding the narrative with his discursive spirit.
In his masterpiece, the Histories, tall stories of dog-headed men, gold-digging ants, and flying snakes jostle for space within a mesmerizing narrative of the Persian Wars, from which Greece emerged triumphant in 5 BC to give birth to Western civilization.

Using the effervescent and profoundly modern Herodotus as his guiding light, Justin Marozzi takes the reader back to his world with eclectic travels to Greece.