“A completely excellent guide to Greek poetry, drama, philosophy, history and culture. Philip Pullman has said that he would put it into every school and every teacher-training course and I’d echo that. . . . Highly entertaining as well as informative.” —A.N. Wilson, Evening Standard
An informative, smart, and amusing narrative about how influential Greeks and Greek culture have been on the rest of the world, from art and architecture to literature, politics, and love
Why are some laws Draconian? What is an Achilles heel? Why were the Spartans Spartan? Charlotte Higgins answers all these questions and more in this indispensable guide to the greatest civilization the world has ever known.
Consider the way we think: about right and wrong, about the nature of beauty, goodness, and truth. About what, in the end, it is to be a human being amid the immensity of the universe. What it is to be mortal, to live for a brief while, and die. All this we have learned from the ancient Greeks. They molded the basic disciplines and genres in which we still organize thought: from poetry to drama, from politics to philosophy, from history to medicine, and even ethnography.
Packed with useful facts – history timelines; mythology for dummies; even a map for those who struggle to know their Lemnos from their Lesbos – It’s All Greek To Me is a guide in one sense, but it is also so much more. This book aims to unlock the richness of this fascinating culture and to place it where it should be, in the mainstream of life.
