Dimensions
129 x 198 x 20mm
Second Edition
Within the space of three centuries leading up to the great Persian invasion of 480 BC, Greece was transformed from a simple peasant society into a sophisticated civilisation which dominated the shores of the Mediterranean from Spain to Syria and from the Crimea to Egypt - a culture whose achievements in the fields of art, science, philosophy and politics were to establish the canons of the Western world.
This book places this remarkable development in the context of Mediterranean civilisation. It shows how contact with the East catalysed the transformation of art and religion, analyses the invention of the alphabet and the conceptual changes it brought, describes the expansion of Greece in trade and colonisation and investigates the relationship between military technology and political progress in the overthrow of aristocratic governments.
It combines a comparative approach with the detailed evidence of archaeology, poetry, art and the oral traditions recorded by Herodotus to provide a new account of the transformation that launched Western culture.
