Herodotus, widely known as the father of history, was not only a historian but also a master story-teller, argues the author of this insightful book. James Romm gives general readers a fresh appreciation of the Histories and shows that Herodotus was more than a source of historical data-he was a masterful and artistic author who created a radically new literary genre.

For the Greeks and Romans the earth's farthest perimeter was a realm radically different from what they perceived as central and human. The alien qualities of these "edges of the earth" became the basis of a literary tradition that endured throughout antiquity and into the Renaissance, despite the growing challenges of emerging scientific perspectives. Here James Romm surveys this tradition, revealing that the Greeks, and to a somewhat lesser extent the Romans, saw geography not as a branch of physical science but as an important literary genre.