Imprint: Vintage
Published: 10/03/2016
ISBN: 9780099583646
Length: 336 Pages
Dimensions: 198mm x 20mm x 129mm
Weight: 234g
RRP: £10.99
They gave us democracy, philosophy, poetry, rational science, the joke. They built the Parthenon and the Library of Alexandria. They wrote the timeless myths of Odysseus and Oedipus, and the histories of Leonidas’s three hundred Spartans and Alexander the Great.
But who were the ancient Greeks? And what was it that enabled them to achieve so much?
Here, Edith Hall gives us a revelatory way of viewing this geographically scattered people, visiting different communities at various key moments during twenty centuries of ancient history.
Identifying ten unique traits central to the widespread ancient Greeks, Hall unveils a civilization of incomparable richness and a people of astounding complexity – and explains how they made us who we are today.
‘A thoroughly readable and illuminating account of this fascinating people… This excellent book makes us admire and like the ancient Greeks equally’
Independent
‘A worthy and lively introduction to one of the two groups of ancient peoples who really formed the western world’
Sunday Times
‘Throughout, Hall exemplifies her subjects’ spirit of inquiry, their originality and their open-mindedness’
Daily Telegraph
‘A book that is both erudite and splendidly entertaining’
Financial Times
Imprint: Vintage
Published: 10/03/2016
ISBN: 9780099583646
Length: 336 Pages
Dimensions: 198mm x 20mm x 129mm
Weight: 234g
RRP: £10.99
Hall examines in scholarly but very readable detail.
Hall’s superb history achieves her aim with a happy marrying of literature and archaeology.
If you’re interested in their history then it is worth reading, and I think even those with some knowledge of the Greeks would learn something from this book.
Terrifically good
[Hall] provides a thoroughly readable and illuminating account of this fascinating people… This excellent book makes us admire and like the ancient Greeks equally
A worthy and lively introduction to one of the two groups of ancient peoples who really formed the western world
This new tome serves as a fantastic general introduction
Edith Hall has a brilliant ability to intellectually analyse the Greeks… because of deep, searching curiosity, and her sense of how this culture reflects upon our moment now. Her writing is so clear and accessible… full of complex reflections and revelations
Wide-ranging and endlessly fascinating… It is a fitting tribute to history that ought to be preserved… because it would, at the very least, enrich our conversation and range of comparison with events today
This crisp little book is also worth reading for Hall’s elegant prose