Book summary

In this accessible and often entertaining survey, historian Thomas Cahill reviews the achievements of Classical Greece and its huge influence on Western civilization. Beginning with an overview of Greek history--partly as Homer presented it in the ILIAD and the ODYSSEY--he goes on to focus on the other early figures who have most influenced Greek civilization (including Sophocles, Sappho, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle) and to explore their contributions to modern attitudes toward, for example, war, philosophy, literature, government, and religion. He also writes about the interrelationships between Greek and Roman ways of thinking, and the influence of Christianity on the Greeks, and vice versa.