History of Greece

George Grote - banker, M.P., a founder of London University - was a Victorian hero, accorded the final honour of burial in Westminster Abbey. But for historians of ancient Greece and students of ancient Greek philosophy, he is not merely a dead hero of the past but the living author of two multi-volume works that are still required reading more than a century later - A History of Greece from the Earliest Period to the Close of the Generation Contemporary with Alexander the Great and Plato and Other Companions of Sokrates. In a new and original introduction, based on the latest research into both Grote and the relevant period of ancient Greek history, Paul Cartledge places Grote's History in its intellectual background, discusses its salient features and traces its subsequent reception over the past century and a half. This new edition makes accessible once again a large chunk of essential Grote. A History of Greece is both one of the greatest modern works of historical interpretation and scholarship, and a work with immediate contemporary relevance to ongoing debates over democracy in our times.