The Ancient Greeks emerged from their mountainous and rocky homeland, at the edge of the Balkan Peninsula, to establish colonies and settle on almost all the coasts of the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. They were a remarkable people who left their mark on almost every aspect of modern human activity: politics, theater, art, philosophy, medicine, architecture, or athletics.

This book presents the world of the ancient Greeks within its historical and cultural context across time, from the Paleolithic era to the period of conquest by the Ottomans. A fundamental question is how the Greeks developed and evolved through the centuries and how they interconnected—peacefully or otherwise—with neighboring peoples such as the Minoans, Carians, Phoenicians, Lydians, Persians, and Romans.

The eastern Mediterranean has always been the point of contact and conflict between East and West, and memories in this part of the world stretch back a great depth of time. When Herodotus begins his account of the Persian Wars in the 5th century BC, he states that the troubles began 700 years earlier, with the events leading to the Trojan War.

From mythology to recent history, the conflict centers around the Aegean: the Greeks against Troy, Greek colonization and settlement in Asia Minor and southern Italy, the Persian invasions of Greece, the conquest of Asia by Alexander, the Roman intervention in the Greek world, the spread of Christianity, the rise of Islam, the Crusades in the Holy Lands, and the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans.

Athens plays a dominant role, yet greater attention is given to other Greek cities than what classical sources attribute to them. Separate chapters of the book examine the Greeks and their gods and heroes, Greek art and architecture. Excerpts from classical writers and inscriptions serve as eyewitness accounts that document events, people, and places, bringing daily life to life and allowing the Greeks to speak for themselves.

The result is a magnificent, profound, and authoritative overview of a civilization that contributed greatly and unprecedentedly to the rise of Western civilization.