The World of Odysseus , by Moses I. Finley. Moses I. Finley (1912-1986) was one of the leading ancient historians of the post-war period. In the poem, Troy was destroyed by war, it was destroyed specifically by Greeks, the Greeks were led by Agamemnon, Agamemnon was recognized as chief of the Greek allies, and … ... and not as a history of some "Trojan War" (this notion, and the notion that Schliemann's Troy was the Troy of the Iliad, he deflates quickly) but as a social history of a particular moment on the peninsula we now call Greece. Moses Finley and others have called his conclusion an “act of faith” and pointed to an almost total lack of evidence to suggest that the fall of Troy was caused by a Greek army ... ↑ Finley, M.I. Web. His many books and articles have had a significant impact on the historical profession. It is believed by countless others that the epic poem was a subjective piece of literature, due to its glorification of war. Finley's uncompromising stand attracted harsh polemics: a voice However, some high profile authorities such as Sir Moses Finley (1912-1986) have denounced the whole idea of a Trojan War as a fiction in his book, The World of Odysseus . Blegen's and Finley's views represent extreme positions in a debate that was already old in the 1960s and continues to this day. Finley later revisited the issue and concluded: "Homer's Trojan War . Sir Moses Finley Interviewed by Keith Hopkins, 18th October 1985, unpublished transcript, Faculty of History, University of Cambridge. In 1909, Albert Gruhn argued against Hissarlik as Troy’s location (i). Also available as a DVD from the Institute of Historical Research, University of London (store.london.ac.uk). et al.. “The Trojan War” The Journal of Hellenic Studies 84 (1964): 1–9. Historian Moses Finley notes that the Iliad was not a contemporary and historical work, but rather one of reflection and nostalgia. Moses Finley, who has paid much attention to the veracity of the history of the Trojan War, mentions in The World of Odysseus that Homer's inspiration does not stems from Mycenaean Greece, nor from Archaic Greece but indeed from Greek Dark Ages. . must be evicted from the History of the Greek Bronze Age" (1977.177). . The first historical task is to determine the time. Speaking of “historical mistakes” with reference to “Troy” is nonsense, for the simple reason that the movie is inspired to a myth, and the myth is the result of fantastic amplification and transfiguration of historical events. 1 Dec 2015, p. ... Finley, M. I. In 1954, scholar Moses Finley looked at five key events from the Iliad as proof that the War did not occur. Moses Finley's "The World of Odysseus" is a rare book that breaks new scholarly ground but is written with a general audience in mind. 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