This is generally recognized as one of the best books about ancient macedonia, if not the best. I would even dare to say that I prefer it over Malcolm Errington's "History of Macedonia" in some points. It's sad to see it's out of print now :( I know that Nicholas Hammond (probably the greatest 20th century researcher on ancient greek history) has died, yet I still hope that it will be reprinted. It's an all time classic and it was the basic bibliography in all universities for many years.

The most important thing to remember about the "Macedonian conflict" is that the Greek position has changed dramatically over the past decade. Official Greek government policy was that Macedonia did not exist. When Greece took over Aegean Macedonia in 1913, they killed, tortured and ethnically cleansed hundreds of thousands of Macedonians. They changed the names of people, villages, and landmarks from Macedonian to Greek in their attempts to eradicate the Macedonian name.

Two things to remember:

1. It is ironic that Greeks now "love Macedonia" when they tried to eradicate its very existence.

2. If Macedonia has always been Greek, why did the Greek government deny its existence until the 1980's?