Trojan War

Did a historical conflict lie behind Homer’s story of the Trojan War? Barry Strauss approaches the question as an ancient military historian, bringing the epic tradition into conversation with archaeology, Bronze Age political geography and Hittite documentary evidence. He reconstructs Troy as a strategically placed city at the entrance to the Dardanelles and sets possible Achaean-Trojan conflict within the competitive world of the Late Bronze Age eastern Mediterranean.

Strauss does not treat Homer as a straightforward chronicle. Instead, he asks which elements of the later epic tradition may preserve plausible memories of Bronze Age warfare, leadership, weapons, tactics and diplomacy, while distinguishing reconstruction from what can actually be demonstrated. Written for a broad readership, The Trojan War is an engaging historical investigation of the territory where archaeology, military history and legendary tradition meet.