Herodotus

The New Yorker is an excellent magazine. Even in these times of falling subscriptions and up-to-the-minute blogs it never fails to provide unparalleled coverage and unique perspectives.

It's reviews are always interesting to read and thorough; sometimes to to the point of overkill, and sometimes to the point of obscuring the subject of the review. Thus it is with the current--excellent--article on Herodotus. The article reads like an essay on what Herodotus might be able to tell us today, though it is supposed to be a review of a new translation (The Landmark Herodotus) of Herodotus' Histories. The book itself is hardly mentioned, but no one should care, because the article is the most succinct description of Herodotus's' project and purpose I've ever read.

Just sayin'.