First let me say what this book is not. Although the dust-jacket claims that the book includes "sections on the relevance of Homer to modern issues in literary criticism", it cannot be said to offer anything approaching a representative, let alone a comprehensive, survey of modern criticism, even as it is currently applied to Homer (H.). It does, in 34 pages, outline "the historical background to Homer and his poetry", but only for those who share the author's assumptions on the time, place, and circumstances of composition.