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About the author
Ian Morris is the Jean and Rebecca Willard Professor of Classics at Stanford University.
Barry B. Powell is the Halls-Bascom Professor of Classics Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Summary
In The Greeks, Ian Morris and Barry B. Powell try to see ancient Greece as a whole: not just a narrative of events or an overview of culture, but history and culture taken together. From ancient Greece comes the modern conviction that through open discussion and the exercise of reason a society of free citizens can solve the problems that challenge it. In one period of Greek history, a society just so governed produced timeless masterpieces of literature, art, and rational thought at the same time that it waged terrible wars and committed countless cruelties. If we understand the past, we can live better in the present, but the past is hard to understand. In The Greeks, Morris and Powell offer new ways of thinking about old problems.
Additional text
Morris and Powell offer a rich and clear-eyed journey through the complex world of ancient Greece, including full treatments of the Hellenistic era and the 'coming of Rome' down to the battle of Actium. Careful examinations of historical and cultural cause and effect help us understand why things might have happened in a certain way, while still showing how many open questions remain; discussions of geography, demography, economics, and the experiences of other Mediterranean cultures introduce some of the complicated factors that underlie historical narrative. Morris and Powell help us understand the Greeks-and they also use the Greeks to help us understand history." -Sarah Brown Ferrario, The Catholic University of America
