The Trojan War: A Very Short Introduction

Was there really a Trojan War behind the stories of Homer? Eric H. Cline brings together literary, documentary and archaeological evidence to examine what can—and cannot—be recovered about Troy and a possible Late Bronze Age conflict. He begins with the Iliad, Odyssey and Epic Cycle before placing their traditions against the worlds of the Mycenaeans, Hittites, Trojans and the wider eastern Mediterranean.

He then turns to the Homeric question, Hittite texts referring to places and peoples that may correspond to Troy and the Achaeans, and the successive excavations at Hisarlik by Schliemann, Dörpfeld, Blegen and Korfmann. The boundary between epic tradition and Bronze Age history remains uncertain, and Cline shows what different kinds of evidence can establish without forcing them into a single verdict.