Hamilton vs Kitto

I began reading The Greeks by H.D.F. Kitto the other day and my mind could not help but draw comparisons between it and E.H.'s The Greek Way to Western Civilization. Both of these books are obviously designed to give the reader insight into classical Greek culture and both were written by renowned classicists. But what I found most fascinating were not the similarities between them but the differences. I have only read the chapter on Homer in Kitto's book but that was enough for me to see how his writing style pales in comparison to E.H's. Don't get me wrong, from what I read on Homer there is valuable information in Kitto's text......but E.H. writes with the authority and passion of one who fought side by side with Achilles or as if she herself was a student at Plato's Academy. Her writing pulls you in and leaves you begging for more. At times she is more poet than scholar. I leave you with the first paragraph of The Greek Way so that you may judge for yourself:

Five hundred years before Christ in a little town on the far western border of the settled and civilized world, a strange new power was at work. Something had awakened in the minds and spirits of the men there which was so to influence the world that the slow passage of long time, of century upon century and the shattering changes they brought, would be powerless to wear away that deep impress.