The Greeks and Us

The human race is all too pre-disposed to think in terms of us and them. Europeans have always laid claim to the Ancient Greeks they are our Greeks, our ancestors but their legacy reaches further than we could ever imagine. Their influence stretches from the Japanese to the Cossacks, from Ancient Rome to Indonesia.

In this path-breaking new volume, the great French historian Marcel Detienne focuses on Eurocentric approaches which have trumpeted the Greeks and their democratic practices as o...