HistoryBook · -440
The Histories
Herodotus
Herodotus sets out to explain why Greeks and Persians went to war and detours through Egyptian embalming, Scythian burials and gold-digging ants. He repeatedly reports a story and then tells you he is not vouching for it, which is why he gets called both the father of history and the father of lies.
Why you should read this
Herodotus is traditionally credited as the first writer to treat the past as a subject for systematic inquiry rather than myth or genealogy, earning him the label 'father of history' even though his methods mix reportage with digression and tall tale. Long and discursive, closer to travel writing than modern historical narrative.
- Field
- History
- Form
- Non-fiction
- Published
- 440 BCE
- Themes
- Ancient HistoryHistory
