The Ancient Greeks: Ten Ways They Shaped the Modern World ISBN 9780099583646

Edith Hall unpacks the mysterious and successful ancient Greek people through 10 uniquely ancient Greek personality traits. 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 300 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 20 centuries of ancient history. Identifying 10 unique traits central to the widespread ancient Greeks, Hall unveils a civilisation of incomparable richness and a people of astounding complexity—and explains how they made us who we are today. About the Author Edith Hall is one of Britain’s foremost classicists, having held posts at the universities of Royal Holloway, Cambridge, Durham, Reading and Oxford. In 2015 she was awarded the Erasmus Medal of the European Academy, given to a scholar whose works represent a significant contribution to European culture and scientific achievement. She is the first woman to win this award. Hall regularly writes in the Times Literary Supplement, reviews theatre productions on radio, and has written and edited more than a dozen works on the ancient world. She teaches at King’s College London and lives in Gloucestershire.