Too often, scholars of the Persian Wars overlook the destruction, terror and displacement caused by Xerxes’ invasion and focus instead on individual battles or the overall campaign. In this volume, G. instead makes clear that ‘battles are not my chief focus. Rather, what interests me is the fate of the civilians’ (p. 2). In particular, he focuses on the experience of the Athenian residents displaced by the Persian occupation of their city between 480 and 479 bce.

G. begins his work with a short introduction that outlines his goals for the volume. Of particular importance is his caveat that students of the Persian Wars should avoid the overly simplistic understanding of the war as a clash between East and West. Nevertheless, problems immediately appear, even in this prologue. G. sets out to present the perspective of the Persian army, ‘even though there isn't any reference to the invasion in any extant Persian text’ (p. 3). And herein lies the difficulty of writing a book of this nature. There are no first-hand accounts of the refugee experience in our Greek sources, no accounts of the soldier's experience in our Persian records, and only tangential references to the evacuation of Athens in our ancient texts. G. acknowledges this challenge. In a short section entitled ‘A Note on Sources’ he concedes, ‘I have tried my best to be insightful, but I have kept my imagination on a tight rein. For this reason, I have flagged (tediously, I suspect) my uncertainties with adverbs like “possibly,” “probably,” and the like. Even so, much of what I have written is in places necessarily speculative’ (p. 135).

Chapter 1 is an overview of the events leading to Xerxes’ invasion of Greece in 480 bce. Some of the challenges facing G. again become apparent in this chapter. G. explores Xerxes’ motivation for invading Greece, even touching on the personality and character of the Great King, but admits that such accounts are ‘the product either of Greek propaganda or of the historian's imagination’ (p. 25). This is, of course, difficult to avoid. Our most detailed accounts of the Persian Wars come from our Greek sources; but in a work that sets out to break down the stereotypical division between East and West, such accounts cannot help but establish a clear ‘good guy’ and a clear ‘bad guy’. This distinct division can ‘poison the well’ for the reader, and one might prefer to see sources such as the Apadana Reliefs and Fortification Archive from Persepolis or the sculpted tombs of Darius and Xerxes from Naqsh-e Rustam as counter-evidence for the character of the Persian kings. G. makes reference, for example, to A. Kuhrt's The Persian Empire: a Corpus of Sources from the Achaemenid Period (2007), but here misses an opportunity to bring in more primary evidence for the Persian king and his empire.

Chapter 2 is arguably the most evocative and problematic section of this volume. In particular, the section concerned with the ‘first evacuation’ of Attica is the book's most powerful imagining of the refugee experience and of the full impact of population displacement upon those most affected by war and conflict. The difficulty arises in the lack of ancient sources that recount such details or record the personal experience of any of the evacuees. As G. himself admits, ‘No text indicates how the Athenians planned to undertake such a complex operation beyond the bare bones preserved in the Decree of Themistocles, so we are left to ourselves to work out the details’ (p. 46). G.’s argument would be strengthened by comparison with the evacuation of Attica during the Archidamian War or even Xenophon's account of the challenges and struggles faced by his mercenary force in the Anabasis. Even so, any reconstruction of the Athenian evacuation must move well beyond our few literary sources. In his ‘A Note on Sources’, though, archaeological evidence warrants only a single cursory paragraph, and the only mention of art is left to a single sentence, ‘Other useful sources include inscriptions and art’ (p. 135).

This heavy preference for literary accounts over material culture is felt most strongly in Chapter 3. This chapter recounts the Persian occupation of Athens and the sack of the Acropolis. Once again, G. succeeds in filling in the gaps of our historical record. Too often we forget what the emotional cost of this occupation must have been for the Athenians as they saw the smoke rising from their city. However, G. must once again temper his narrative of the evacuees’ reaction, noting that ‘We know nothing about what the evacuees were feeling at this moment’ (p. 74). This could perhaps be alleviated by a more in-depth discussion of the Perserschutt, the deposits of damaged or disused sculptures and dedications buried by the Athenians on the Acropolis after their return to the city. G. includes a single paragraph on the topic, and yet we have in these deposits one of the only examples of physical evidence for the sack and rebuilding of Athens during this period. A. Stewart's (2008) lengthy treatment of these deposits, for instance, adds credence to the notion that the Athenian mindset was fundamentally altered by this experience, leading to the development of a new sculptural style.

Chapter 4 begins with the Athenian return to their destroyed city. Much as in his description of the ‘first evacuation’, G. again paints a vivid picture of the deep emotional toll this return must have had on the city's residents. The scene is one that demands empathy from the reader, and contemporary parallels are difficult to avoid. This sentiment is undercut, however, by G.’s claim that Xerxes’ troops, those who withdrew to the East with him after Salamis, represent an ‘evacuation of sorts’ as well. The chapter continues with Mardonius’ offer of an alliance, the Athenians’ refusal of this offer, and the subsequent evacuation and destruction of the city. One wonders how the city could be so quickly and effectively evacuated at this time and yet not after Thermopylae; but G. notes that ‘By now they had got evacuation down to a fine art’ (p. 95). G.’s description of the construction of the Themistoclean Wall in this chapter deserves credit, as this structure also represents one of the only examples of archaeological evidence for the Athenian response to the sack of the city and the return of the evacuees.

Chapter 5 offers some of the most useful discussion for students using this book in the classroom. G. highlights the differences between the Greek and Persian accounts of the war, emphasising how a single event, even one that seems to have a clear outcome, can be presented in starkly different ways depending on the source and audience of the information. Likewise, G. recounts the quick devolvement of the Greek city-states into their traditional rivalries, despite their recent achievements and cooperation. And he notes the hegemonic rise of the Athenians and the establishment of their empire. Once again, it is difficult to avoid drawing comparisons with contemporary events, and these sections compel the reader to realise that the world, whether ancient or modern, does not exist in black and white. The Greeks had their faults, and the Persians were certainly not all bad – a point nicely discussed in a section aptly called ‘Not Learning Lessons’.

G. closes with a brief epilogue that lists the numerous occupations and destructions of the Acropolis from the ancient to the modern world. Here, though, G. puzzlingly undercuts one of the stated goals of this work. G. professes his admiration for the ‘extraordinary courage and self-sacrifice of the Athenians’ and claims that, without this, ‘we would not have the artistic, dramatic, philosophical, political, and scientific achievements that have illuminated Western civilization’ (p. 125). This is a surprising departure from G.’s earlier pronouncement that such an East–West dichotomy should be avoided. And this final example encapsulates many of the difficulties that this book presents. On the one hand, G. focuses on an episode in Athenian history that is little discussed or considered. However, his discussion of this is very speculative, not surprising given the dearth of ancient material on the subject. In the end, readers, instructors and students must be cautious in approaching the important but challenging subject of displaced, underrepresented and marginalised peoples in antiquity.