?The present volume derives from a conference held in August 1989. (?) Over five hundred pages have been put together with great accuracy. (?) The collection might be thought unbalanced, with nine contributions out of a total of twenty on archaeology and history, but the proportions relate to the complexity of the research rather than its significance for the study of Homer, and it is difficult to say that any of these is otiose. (?) The most important recent discovery is the unearthing of the double princely burial in the large building at Lefkandi in Euboea, which is affecting our view not only of the dark ages, but also of the development of the Homeric Kunstsprache, with its dominating Ionic flavour. Blome (?) identifies Lefkandi as for two centuries the richest centre in Greece after Athens. The burial has similarities with that described for Patroklos in Iliad 23. As to the possible connection with the history of the heroic poetry, Schadewaldt had already suggested (?) the probable significance of Euboea; and M.L. west (?) has supported this view in the light of the new finds. Lefkandi comes into the arguments of Raaflaub, Bartonek, Graf und Schefold, as well as Blome. Second only to the discoveries at Lefkandi, and potentially of even greater long-term interest for Homerists, are the excavations of Korfmann in the Troad. (?) A number of the contributors, taking a responsible view of the title of the conference, give a historical survey (back to Wolf in many cases) of the field they espouse: these ar Buchholz, Burkert, Bartonek, Neumann, Graf, Vogt, Latacz and Holoka. (?) There are no contributions here from which one does not learn. (?) S. Deger-Jalkotzy writes fascinatingly about the period following the break-up of the Mycenaean civilisation with the destruction of the palaces. (?) Gschnitzer writes with commitment about the political and social background to the Homeric poems. He sees of course that the poets took details from their own time to illuminate the far-off saga world. (?) We end with four contributions on different methods of interpretation: neoanalysis, oral poetry theory, narratology, and - just as we begin to wonder whether old-style analysis has finally disappeared - the application of evidence from art history by Schefold, who piously upholds the views of P. Von der Mühll, virtually the last of the analysts.? (M.M. WILLCOCK in The Journal of Hellenic Studies, 1993, pp.182-184).