The Greeks

“The best introduction I have ever read to Ancient Greece. The author’s liveliness of mind and style has enabled him to make a mass of information appetizing and digestible” –Ray Mortimer in the Sunday Times

The Greeks were extraordinary not least because they evolved "a totally new conception of what human life was for." Justifying and elaborating on that claim, H.D.F. Kitto explores the life, culture and history of classical Greece, bringing to his subject the passion, wit and insight that have made this brief introduction a world-famous classic.

“Professor Kitto is a model historian – lively, accurate, and fully acquainted with the latest developments in the subject . . . never vague . . . often witty and always full of vigour.”—The Times Educational Supplement1 INTRODUCTION
2 THE FORMATION OF THE GREEK PEOPLE
3 THE COUNTRY
4 HOMER
5 THE POLIS
6 CLASSICAL GREECE: THE EARLY PERIOD
7 CLASSICAL GREECE: THE FIFTH CENTURY
8 THE GREEKS AT WAR
9 THE DECLINE OF THE POLIS
10 THE GREEK MIND
11 MYTH AND RELIGION
12 LIFE AND CHARACTER

INDEX

H. D. F. Kitto was a highly respected authority on classical Greek literature. His seminal work, The Greeks, is considered the industry standard by scholars worldwide. It has seen more than 30 reprints and has been translated into several languages. Kitto served as a lecturer in Greek at the University of Glasgow before joing Bristol University as a professor of Greek from 1944 to 1962. He died in 1982.