Story and history

J. G. Manning reviews The Histories by Herodotus in a new translation by Tom Holland at The New Criterion.

A common question is how does this translation compare to others. Here's Mr. Manning's answer from below the paywall.

"David Grene’s work from 1987 has become a standard in the classroom. The Landmark Herodotus (2007) edited by Robert Strassler offers a solid translation, lots of maps, and appendices written by leading scholars, but it suffers from some outdated notes. My own personal favorite has become Robin Waterfield’s 1988 rendition. I particularly like the fluidity of his translation and the superb outline of the text and the notes provided by Carolyn Dewald, a leading scholar of Herodotus (I’m an academic and I like my notes). ...

"Tom Holland succeeds by giving us a new, dynamic, living-and-breathing Herodotus. It is in my view the equal to Waterfield’s translation. Holland provides the reader with just enough notes at the end of the text to understand some context. A Glossary Index usefully combines definitions of important words with citations of relevant passages in the text. There are also good basic maps and a Map Index. The book is beautifully produced, with an Introduction and notes provided by Paul Cartledge."

I'll only add that the The Landmark Herodotus was impressive in print, but not in the Kindle version. Each section of the work on paper was accompanied a brief summary, but many of these were misplaced in the ebook.