The Twitter Herodotus

In the 5th century B.C., Herodotus of Halicarnassus wrote a lengthy account of the expansion of the Persian Empire and its ultimate collision with the city-states of Greece. The two Persian Wars of the early 5th century B.C.-with the legendary battles of Marathon, Thermopylae, Salamis, and Plataea-were decisive moments in the history of Greece and indeed of all Europe. We owe much of what we know about them, and about the history and cultures of the pre-Classical ancient world, to Herodotus.

In 2010 Debra Hamel embarked on a project of tweeting an abbreviated version of Herodotus' "History of the Persian Wars": each of the "History"'s 1535 sections would be summarized in a single tweet (that is, in 140 characters or less) and posted to the twitter account @iHerodotus, one tweet per day. The project would take more than four years to complete.

This book, which is being released to coincide with the conclusion of the Twitter project, contains the entire tweeted "History." Although much of Herodotus' rich story was necessarily omitted from this abbreviated version of his text, "The Twitter Herodotus" conveys well the great breadth of Herodotus' remarkable account. This very readable and entertaining, if unconventional, summary of the "History" can serve as an introduction to Herodotus' masterpiece and will entice readers to find out more about the author and his subject matter.

"A composition that will win the applause of the moment " - Thucydides