Kind of dry, with some badly edited sentence structures that hamper reading, but the vast amount of information covered, from political context to contemporary performances, in such a short volume is really impressive, as are the concise meta-analyses of previous scholarship. Storey basically places critics on a spectrum of readings that range from ironic/anti-war to earnest/patriotic, and identifying the diversity of positions on this spectrum is a great way to depict the conflicted atmosphere and contradictions of the play itself. This is one of those writers who for the most part doesn't let his personal stance interrupt the overview - for example, while Storey doesn't seem to think gender plays such a key role, he dutifully goes over other commentators' gender arguments so that the reader can make up her own mind about how it relates to the play. In many cases I found myself disagreeing with Storey and placing my own reading of the play somewhere else on the spectrum he had articulated. To provoke such a reaction is in my opinion the sign of a great academic writer. Having no academic background in drama or Greek history, reading this book I felt like Neo when he quickly downloads/masters karate in the Matrix. It helps that Suppliant Women was already one of my favourite plays ever, but this book really solidified that status.