Review of "If You Were Me and Lived in …Ancient Greece," by Carole R. Roman

Review of

If You Were Me and Lived in …Ancient Greece, by Carole R. Roman ISBN 9781523234295

Three out of five stars

 This would be a very good primer on Ancient Greece, both in terms of how the society functioned as well as the history, if there was not a major error. In general, Roman does an excellent job in describing, at roughly the level of a second grade child, what life was like in Ancient Greece. She describes major achievements such as the birth of the Olympics and democracy as well as routine things, such as what the Greeks ate for breakfast.

 The major error occurs on page 40 and it refers to the three great philosophers of that time. Quoting from the book, “Plato (Plaeto) started the first school of higher learning in the western world. His student, Socrates (Socrateez), set the foundation for studying philosophy and science, and Aristotle (Ar-ris-tot-el) promoted views that shaped the way people have learned for the last two thousand years.”

 The error is that Plato was a student of Socrates, not the way it is stated here. This is unfortunate, for it is such a significant error that it reduces the overall quality. While not an error, it would have been an improvement if it had been stated that Plato’s school was known as the Academy. Another important point that could have been made is that women also attended the Academy, something that was very rare until the latter part of the twentieth century. There is also no mention that Aristotle was a student of Plato.

 While all errors matter, significant ones can drag down the overall quality of a book. Unfortunately, that is what happened here. 

This book was made available for free for review purposes.