As a native of Treptow, now part of Poland 1833 in
German but we had to wait a full century to find it translated into French. The
translator is Jacques-Méchin, who later wrote a history of Alexander of his own, no doubt inspired by Droysen. My edition dates from 1981 and has respected
the author’s original style as much as possible.
The German text is written in one piece,
meaning that it has no chapters or points of reference. For the reader’s
comfort, Jacques-Méchin has divided the book into Four Books in his translation.
It is clear that Droysen’s history does not
include historical and archaeological discoveries made since 1833, especially
in countries like Syria , Iraq , Afghanistan ,
Iran and Mesopotamia
in general. He rather faithfully follows ancient historians like Arrian, Diodorus, Plutarch and Curtius, without imposing his own views
or opinions on us. His history is coherent and reads like a novel rather than a
historical account.
In Droysen’s day, this book was taken in high
esteem but with today’s reader it obviously will fall short because of the new
developments that occurred over the past two hundred years. Besides, we have to
consider his perception of the world against the events of his days when Napoleon had put archaeology on the map
during his campaign in Egypt ,
which in turn triggered later explorations of Greece
and Anatolia by men like H. Schliemann, C. Fellows, T.A.B. Spratt and J. Burckhardt to name just a few. In any case, the
book certainly makes a good read.
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