This broadly-based history offers a new look at the origins of western civilization and highlights the changes that transpired in Greece between 1200 BC and the ascendancy of Rome. Interspersed throughout the text are translated primary sources and brief accounts of what was occurring in the rest of the eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East during the classical period.

Table of Contents

Part I: The Predecessors
1. Introduction
2. Mesopotamia
3. Egypt
4. The Children of Israel

Part II: The Greeks
5. Homer — Fact and Fiction
6. A New Beginning
7. Sparta and Athens: Static and Dynamic
8. The Invention of Democracy in Athens
9. Ionia: Science and Poetry

Part III: The Fifth Century
10. East Against West: The Persian Wars
11. The Pentekontaetia: Fifty Famous Years
12. Spending the Money: Temples and Theaters
13. The Peloponnesian War: Part I
14. The Peloponnesian War: Part II