The alpha and the omega: why a life without Homer is a life half lived -- The living, the dead and the deathless: mortality in Hesiod, Homer and Sophocles -- Man is a political animal: democracy and the polis -- Pandora's daughters: the silent majority -- Swords and sandals: war in Homer, Herodotus and Thucydides -- Beyond the borders: Greeks and barbarians -- The twilight of the gods: the beginnings of science from Thales to Aristotle -- The death of Socrates and the birth of philosophy: the challenge of Plato's Republic -- Love and loss: desire in Homer, Sappho and Plato

"An informative, smart, and very amusing narrative about how influential Greeks and Greek culture have been on the rest of the world, from art to architecture to literature to politics to love"--