The Spartans: The World of the Warrior-Heroes of Ancient Greece

What a fun book to read! I am a newbie when it comes to Greek and Spartan history and found this to be a great place to start! Lots of great details. Lots of fun stories. I wish there was more coverage of the exact ways Spartan men were intimate with each other both physically and emotionally, and how they and their women interacted, loved, and processed what to them was a perfectly normal, in fact, great, civilization. As far as I can tell, maybe we don’t actually know because we don’t have source information to describe it beyond what is written in this book. I have no idea. At any rate, a great book.

I am in no way a Greek nor a classical scholar so I can't rate this book on its qualities as a history. I can say that the book is engaging and helpful to me in understanding the Spartan role in classical Greek history.I was prepared for a dry, textbook approach and this is much better than that. I recommend it as an advanced book but I am anything but advanced in this area of history. Let me talk to the author: As a rank amateur historian I have three needs that go unmet in this book: 1. MAPS! There are three maps but they are poor at best. They don't always relate to the text -- an area mentioned will not be mapped. The topography of Greece is obviously important but there is no topographical map. The book covers centuries but the maps offer no help with time lines. My 7th Grade teacher would give just a C- to these maps. 2. TIMELINE. Always helpful and often included on the inside of the covers. Simply not here. I get confused about events, people, etc. and I've had to build my own (poor) timeline. I'd rather you built an accurate one. 3. Organization: I am often confused about the book's organization. It lacks timeline order. It requires a basic knowledge of the Greek kings. There is an underlying assumption that I already know a lot about Greek history and this is refinement. I need better orientation because I am often at a loss as to when/where/why I am in this history. See 'Timeline' above. I have dipped into four books on Spartan history and this is by far the best of the lot.

By avoiding the pitfalls of a tendentious interpretation, I think the professor offers here a very entertaining read about Sparta. It is hard for us in the privileged West to imagine what life was like when leadership and courage actually mattered in everyday life. The tension between ethics and self-preservation colors our interpretations of history and cultural norms of past civilizations. Professor Cartledge's extended discussion of Spartan history and culture is highly readable and balances that tension among right and wrong and the facts of life. One of the best aspects of this volume is that Cartledge discusses in detail the later Spartans, an area most students either avoid or forget once they get past the Theban hegemony in the middle of the 4th century. Sparta continued to awe and inspire Mediteranian civilization long after their heyday, and it is that part of Cartledge's book that I found most valuable.

Great read and a ton of good background and detail into the Spartan lifestyle and ideology. Spartans have attained almost mythical status in todays time with the help of movies, and time, to hide some of their human flaws and downsides. This book does an excellent job at going into just enough detail to give you the whole story on how they came into existence, power, and then decline without being a 10 part series. Fascinating read that flew by.

This excellent work may shatter some of your myths in regards to the Spartans however, it is well researched and very well presented. As I can not study with the author so as to hear his lectures, this seems the next best thing.

Well it has plenty of information but is poorly organized and poorly edited. It is often unclear what the subject of a paragraph is, and seems to jump about quite a bit. The book feels like a conversation with a Classics professor in pub over a pint of beer - lots of enthusiasm but little structure. I’m learning a lot, but it’s hard to keep it all organized in my own mind.

Michael Grant was a British classics scholar (as they called them in the mid 20th century) who specialized in easy-to-read, once-over-lightly summaries of other people's scholarship. The writer of this book should only be so good. He has great credentials but aims quite low for an audience that doesn't really want to know "too" much about the subject and probably ordered the book under the influence of a heavy rotation in sword-and-sandals video games. I would return my copy, but it was very cheap in the first place and, maybe, I'll re-gift it. There are better, deeper books out there.

Paul Cartledge is an amazing historian. A well researched, well written history of the ancient Sparta for those interested in understanding the politics of such a unique polis! I took always interest in ancient Sparta since it is the birthplace of my ancestors and I have to admit that Cartledge's history met my expectations.

This book is a must read for who want know about ancient Sparta. The authoe Cartledge is a great autority about ancient Hellas an espacially on Sparta. This book despite the great knowledge of the author is easy to read from anyone. So I suggest to read this book.

A captivating and accessible deep dive into one of history’s most iconic warrior societies, The Spartans offers a vivid portrait of Sparta’s rise, golden age, and eventual unraveling. Paul Cartledge masterfully blends scholarly insight with engaging storytelling, making ancient history feel alive. He doesn’t just focus on battles and discipline, but explores the values, contradictions, and humanity of the Spartan world. A must-read for anyone interested in the real story behind the legend—rich in detail, balanced in analysis, and surprisingly reflective.

I studied ancient history at university but 20 years on, needing to teach something to my pupils on Sparta, I was concerned I had forgotten some details about Spartan history and so I decided to read this book to brush up a little. Cartledge is on top of his subject and was able to combine textual and archaeological evidence in an interesting and effective way to produce a very readable account. The book is much better on the growth of Sparta until it reached the peak of its power and influence in the C5th and early C4th. Cartledge does, however, assume some familiarity with the subject and had I not been able to recall some of the details about key Spartan kings such as Cleomenes or Demaratus, at some points I could have become confused. Perhaps this is always going to be the case in a book for the general reader. I also found the description of Sparta's decline dealt with in a more cursory way, though this may be more to do with my greater unfamiliarity with events after 404BC. The appendix is rather idiosyncratic and unusual in such a book, but amused me. Certainly a better general introduction than Forrest's History of Sparta which I still have on my shelves from college days, I enjoyed taking it away on holiday and am better informed than I was before.

This book is a fairly good read, a lot of information is given with good references. Nice biographical sketches. The evolution of Sparta could have been somewhat better organised in the sense that the story line sometimes gets ahead of itself, with the author then coming back to the other facts, which can be a little confusing. But overall makes for good, even passionate reading. I recommend this book to anyone wanting to know more about the history of Sparta.