HERODOTUS (d’Halicarnassus)

Biography:

Herodotus was a tireless traveler-investigator, who traveled through Persia, India, Babylon, the Caucasus, Asia Minor, Greece and Macedonia, the Italian peninsula, Phoenicia and Palestine, Egypt and Libya. His primary motivation is to understand why men go off to wage distant wars of unprecedented brutality. Our history books on this period are based on his writings, but generally fail to integrate his reflections, which would give readers the material to question the warlike approaches involved. Ryszard Kapuscinski (see Authors) writes this about Herodotus: Herodotus fascinated me from the start. His way of seeing and describing people and the world clearly shows him to be an understanding and benevolent being, serene and warm. There is no malice or hatred in him. He doesn't accuse man as an individual, he accuses the system. For this reason, Herodotus is a staunch defender of freedom, an opponent of despotism, autocracy and tyranny, because he believes that only democracy allows the individual to behave with dignity, to be himself, to be human. Excerpt from Mes voyages avec Hérodote, 2004, Ed. Plon, 2006, p. 268. He also writes: Herodotus was the first to describe the multicultural nature of the world, the first to assert that all cultures must be accepted and understood. (Id., p. 88). Herodotus set out to discover these worlds. He sees - and this is his greatest revelation - that they are numerous, different from one another, and above all, that they are all important. (Id., p. 272).