希罗多德政治史书的一个重要主题，就是讲述人灵魂世界的战争如何演变为现实政治世界的战争。希罗多德让我们看到，城邦礼法的败坏最终会导致城邦的衰亡，而导致礼法败坏的，正是政治人灵魂之法的紊乱，灵魂之法比城邦之法显得更为紧要。希罗多德修史的意图，就是要校治政治人的灵魂。灵魂就像河水，不断涌动，城邦习俗和自然界限就像河的两岸，希罗多德就在这动与静之间观察城邦治乱兴亡的历史。 我们称王为遵循灵魂法度和城邦礼法的人，称破坏灵魂和城邦法度、纵容自己欲望的僭主为霸。从这个层面来看，理解希罗多德王霸之辨的要津，并不在于他给那些王侯将相安排的名头——当然也不能忽视这一点，而更应该从德行的角度考量王与霸之间的差异。

David Grene, one of the best known translators of the Greek classics, splendidly captures the peculiar quality of Herodotus, the father of history. Here is the historian, investigating and judging what he has seen, heard, and read, and seeking out the true causes and consequences of the great deeds of the past. In his History, the war between the Greeks and Persians, the origins of their enmity, and all the more general features of the civilizations of the world of his day are seen as a unity and expressed as the vision of one man who as a child lived through the last of the great acts in this universal drama. His personality, formalized as witness, reader, and commentator, is integrated into the report which attends on all the events and through which they live for future times. In Grene's remarkable translation and commentary, we see the historian as a storyteller, combining through his own narration the skeletal "historical" facts and the imaginative reality toward which his story reaches. Herodotus emerges in all his charm and complexity as a writer and the first historian in the Western tradition, perhaps unique in the way he has seen the interrelation of fact and fantasy. (on the back cover)

From the editor of the widely praised The Landmark Thucydides, a new Landmark Edition of The Histories by Herodotus, the greatest classical work of history ever written. Herodotus was a Greek historian living in Ionia during the fifth century BCE. He traveled extensively through the lands of the Mediterranean and the Black Sea and collected stories, and then recounted his experiences with the varied people and cultures he encountered. Cicero called him “the father of history,” and his only work, The Histories, is considered the first true piece of historical writing in Western literature. With lucid prose that harks back to the time of oral tradition, Herodotus set a standard for narrative nonfiction that continues to this day. In The Histories, Herodotus chronicles the rise of the Persian Empire and its dramatic war with the Greek city-states. Within that story he includes rich veins of anthropology, ethnography, geology, and geography, pioneering these fields of study, and explores such universal themes as the nature of freedom, the role of religion, the human costs of war, and the dangers of absolute power. Ten years in the making, The Landmark Herodotus gives us a new, dazzling translation by Andrea L. Purvis that makes this remarkable work of literature more accessible than ever before. Illustrated, annotated, and filled with maps, this edition also includes an introduction by Rosalind Thomas and twenty-one appendices written by scholars at the top of their fields, covering such topics as Athenian government, Egypt, Scythia, Persian arms and tactics, the Spartan state, oracles, religion, tyranny, and women. Like The Landmark Thucydides before it, The Landmark Herodotus is destined to be the most readable and comprehensively useful edition of The Histories available.

《历史》，又名《希腊波斯战争史》，大约写于希罗多德住在萨摩司的一段时期，生前没有完稿，后来亚历山大里亚的注释家将全书加以整理，分为九卷，每卷都冠以一位文艺女神之名。这种格局和分卷方法沿用至今。这部著作以希波战争为主线，广泛地记述了当时的历史状况。整篇内容大致可分为两个部分。第一部分由第一卷到第五卷，可以看作战争的背景介绍，它以希腊人和异族人之间的相互关系和希罗多德认为的纠纷的起因，以及波斯的兴起为主要线索，叙述吕底亚、米底、巴比伦、埃及、波斯、斯基泰、利比亚和希腊等地区的历史往事、地理、民族和风俗习惯。第二部分从第五卷第二十九章起到第九卷末尾，可以看作战争的描述，它以希波战争为主，从爱奥尼亚起义，一直写到普拉提耶和米卡尔战役，讲述了希波战争的主要过程。整部著作内容博杂，脉络分明，重点突出，结构完整。希波战争无疑是《历史》叙述的重点，但希罗多德又不仅仅局限于这次战争，它以相当大的篇幅记录了希腊及相关国家的历史传说、风土民情和逸闻趣事，对各种各样的政治制度和风俗习惯作了大量收集，认真地整理并加以比较、分析、研究。这在一定程度上还表现出一种崇尚东方智慧和东方文化的心态，与此同时本书中还大量地记录了一些神谶、灾异、梦兆等神秘现象。这些内容扩大了本书的记录，拓宽了本书的视野，使其完全超越一部战争史的范围，而成为当时西亚、北非以及希腊各个城邦的一部“通志”。与其说它是一部战争史，不如说它是一部希腊人记录当时希腊人所知世界的世界历史。 《历史》一书反映出来的历史观比较复杂，一方面他对历史过程持有一种宿命观点，人们的祸福和国家的繁荣都受到命运之神的左右。他认为，神有嫉妒之心，因此树高要遭雷击，名大会引神忌，而且“当城邦或民族将要遭到巨大灾祸的时候，上天总是会垂示征兆的”，历史事变和天意之间有一种神秘的联系。但在战争的叙述中，他又认为胜负受到交战双方主客观条件的制约，并非完全天定。他还试图以历史自身去说明历史，这在希腊历史思想发展史上具有十分深远的意义。由于这样的原因，希罗多德在历史叙述中表现出一种难能可贵的客观立场，而这一点正是历史成为一门科学的基础。他奠定的一些原则，对西方历史学的发展起了巨大的推动作用，直到今天，对我们当代的历史研究还具有重要的现实意义。

《希波战争史》是西方史学中最早的一部历史著作，与《史记》并为东西方史学奠基之作。 　　《希波战争史》取材广泛、规模宏大、史料充实。文字生动流畅、富于文采且充满了浪漫想象。该书内容丰赡，不仅记载了政治、军事、外交等有关希波战争的史实：还广泛涉到古代埃及、巴比伦、叙利亚、波斯和小亚细亚各国的自然地理、风俗民情、宗教文化和社会经济情况；其视野扩大到当时希腊及其周边世界，展示了古代近20个国家和地区的民族生活图景，被西方学者誉为“第一部世界性的社会文化史”和“百科全书式”的著作。 　　希罗多德将艺术性、标准性与批判性相结合，以哲人般的深邃、史家般的笔法、文学家般的文风缔造出结构虽松散。但具有基本主题的叙述和纪事本末体体裁。使得这部西方史学发展史上第一部较完备的历史著作犀利而深刻。日久而弥新。