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This is my first delving outside the usual classical world into the Hellenistic. My first impression from this book is 'I'm confused'. Now I ain't a thicko, (I recognise some of the people from the 'Acknowledgements' from attending their lectures), so I can only assume that Mr Walbank has not made a good contribution to admittedly this very idiosyncratic period of the diadoche. The problem is... dating. I suspect Mr Walbank still respects some of that dreary old drivel from the 1960's and 70's which self consciously 'liberated' history from the yoke of temporal sequence. The absence of a strict linear chronology solidly based around the primary cultural node points of history ie BATTLES, (y'know the things that make one culture arrive and another disappear), leaves me floundering. One cannot make sense in a chronological mess, because comparatives cannot be made. The descriptions become merely of an idiosyncratic process in each of the Successor kingdoms, which to my mind makes the whole description ie book fairly pointless. So its probably excellent if you like waffly history, that doesn't say anything. But this seems very old fashioned now a generation after post deconstruction consigned this format to history itself. Pity Old Snodders didn't advise him to shove a Leonard Cottrell style multiple adjacent chronology in I reckon. I will be looking elsewhere for my intro into uniquely Hellenistic characteristics.Read full review