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The Ancient Greeks
The Ancient Greeks
May 4, 2025 6:08 PM

Author:Edith Hall

The Ancient Greeks

They gave us democracy, philosophy, poetry, rational science, the joke. They built the Parthenon and the Library of Alexandria. They wrote the timeless myths of Odysseus and Oedipus, and the histories of Leonidas’s three hundred Spartans and Alexander the Great.

But who were the ancient Greeks? And what was it that enabled them to achieve so much?

Here, Edith Hall gives us a revelatory way of viewing this geographically scattered people, visiting different communities at various key moments during twenty centuries of ancient history.

Identifying ten unique traits central to the widespread ancient Greeks, Hall unveils a civilization of incomparable richness and a people of astounding complexity – and explains how they made us who we are today.

‘A thoroughly readable and illuminating account of this fascinating people… This excellent book makes us admire and like the ancient Greeks equally’

Independent

‘A worthy and lively introduction to one of the two groups of ancient peoples who really formed the western world’

Sunday Times

‘Throughout, Hall exemplifies her subjects’ spirit of inquiry, their originality and their open-mindedness’

Daily Telegraph

‘A book that is both erudite and splendidly entertaining’

Financial Times

Reviews

Hall examines in scholarly but very readable detail.

—— Simon Shaw , Mail on Sunday

Hall’s superb history achieves her aim with a happy marrying of literature and archaeology.

—— Lesley McDowell , Independent

If you’re interested in their history then it is worth reading, and I think even those with some knowledge of the Greeks would learn something from this book.

—— Judith Griffith , Nudge

Terrifically good

—— Natalie Haynes , Observer

[Hall] provides a thoroughly readable and illuminating account of this fascinating people… This excellent book makes us admire and like the ancient Greeks equally

—— John Davie , Independent

A worthy and lively introduction to one of the two groups of ancient peoples who really formed the western world

—— Christopher Hart , Sunday Times

This new tome serves as a fantastic general introduction

—— Big Issue

Edith Hall has a brilliant ability to intellectually analyse the Greeks… because of deep, searching curiosity, and her sense of how this culture reflects upon our moment now. Her writing is so clear and accessible… full of complex reflections and revelations

—— Ian Rickson

Wide-ranging and endlessly fascinating… It is a fitting tribute to history that ought to be preserved… because it would, at the very least, enrich our conversation and range of comparison with events today

—— Daisy Dunn , Standpoint

This crisp little book is also worth reading for Hall’s elegant prose

—— Suzi Feay , Financial Times

Throughout, Hall exemplifies her subjects’ spirit of inquiry, their originality and their open-mindedness… And in doing that…she reminds us of how civilizing and humanizing a study of the ancients can be

—— Daily Telegraph

A fascinating read, delightfully illustrated with unusual and exquisite drawings

—— Michael Scott , BBC History Magazine

Groundbreaking ... acutely identifies and brilliantly explores ten defining qualities that together explain why we simply cannot do without the ancient Greeks

—— Professor Paul Cartledge, University of Cambridge

21st-century readers eager to understand the glorious contributions of the ancient Greeks have their own ideal escort in Edith Hall

—— Adrienne Mayor , Literary Review

An intriguing and rewarding journey through 2000 years of Greek history

—— Good Book Guide

A book that is both erudite and splendidly entertaining

—— Tony Barber , Financial Times

A fascinating way to write about George Sand, Virginia Woolf and others, plus Elkin’s own artistic explorations of Paris, London, Venice and Tokyo. It makes us all want to be London wanderers.

—— Culture Whisper, Book of the Year

Elkin delivers a prococative yet light and humorous read, mingling her own memories with those of the female artists she portrays.

—— French Property News

With this book, Elkin hopes to track down the female equivalent – the flâneuse – to ‘see where a woman might fit into the cityscape’… It is a timely effort: in the Trump era of manspreading and male privilege, it is especially vital that we pay attention to notions of gendered space. Elkin’s prose is wry, insightful and saturated with detail

—— Sam Ford , Totally Dublin

Delightfully meandering.

—— Daily Telegraph

Elkin is a beguiling writer, and resolutely female, her sentences doing what Virginia Woolf wanted women's sentences to do, which is to "hold back the male flood"… Flâneuse is a riposte to all that macho stomping about… Flâneuse is so rich with shining trinkets and wise thoughts that not a single page disappoints or bores. It's that rare thing these days - a work of feminism which is enthused by literature and art and ideas rather than pop culture.

—— Ellis O'Hanlon , Irish Independent

Elkin explores the history of people and places in astonishing detail. She writes with a passion and personality that creates the kind of familiarity which encourages us to believe that the women she studies were close friends of hers… Elkin's first person, colloquial yet witty style lets you into the recesses of her imagination and invites you to be her travel companion

—— Oxford Student

Lauren Elkin is one of our most valuable critical thinkers – the Susan Sontag of her generation

—— Deborah Levy

Juliet Nicolson is firing on all cylinders ... She is able to write about powerful emotion in a way that is both heartfelt and unselfconscious ... It makes the book perfectly personal as well as a fascinating history

—— William Boyd

This book is a marvellous illustration of the often forgotten fact that people in history were real, with real ambition, real passion and real rage. All these women took life by the throat and shook it. It’s a wonderful read, and a powerful reminder of the significance of our matrilineal descent

—— Julian Fellowes

Juliet Nicolson's book will engage the hearts and minds of daughters and sons everywhere. She has turned my attention to much in my life, and I am full of admiration for her clarity and gentleness

—— Vanessa Redgrave

I loved A House Full of Daughters. I was initially intrigued, then gripped, and then when she began writing about herself, deeply moved and admiring of the way in which she charted her own journey. An illuminating book in which she charts the inevitability of family life and the damage and gifts that we inherit from the previous generations

—— Esther Freud

A fascinating, beautifully written, brutally honest family memoir. I was riveted. This is a book to read long into the night

—— Frances Osborne

I was riveted... She is so astute about mother/daughter relationships and the tenderness of fathers and daughters. She deeply understands the way problems pass down through generations... I congratulate her on her fierce understanding.

—— Erica Jong

Juliet Nicolson’s writing is so confident and assured. She combines the magic of a novelist with the rigour of a historian, and the result is thrilling and seriously powerful

—— Rosie Boycott

Once I started it was impossible to stop. I was totally absorbed by Juliet Nicolson's large-souled approach to family memoir down the generations, drawing the reader into lives that reverberate with achievement and suffering... movingly original

—— Lyndall Gordon

A moving and very revealing account of seven generations of strong and yet curiously vulnerable mothers and daughters

—— Julia Blackburn

An outstanding book about a gifted, unconventional family told through the female line. Insightful, painfully honest, beautifully written and full of love, wisdom, compassion, loss, betrayal and self-doubt. A House Full of Daughters will resonate down the years for all who read it

—— Juliet Gardiner

An engaging memoir in which Nicolson lays bare discoveries about herself, but also gives a fascinating inside take on her renowned, and already much scrutinized, forebears. She also has much that is thought-provoking to say about mothers and daughters, marriage and the way in which damaging patterns can repeat down generations.

—— Caroline Sanderson , Bookseller

Nicolson is perceptive on difficult mother-daughter relationships.

—— Leyla Sanai , Independent

A fascinating personal look at family, the past and love.

—— Kate Morton , Woman & Home

Beautifully written history… She has as easy and elegant a style as her many writer relations, so this book is seductively readable. It could be described as a late addition to the ‘Bloomsbury’ shelves, but that should not put off anyone who feels enough has been said about that particular group. I found it touching and fascinating. In admitting that Nigel Nicolson was a friend, I can say with confidence that he would have been painfully proud of his daughter’s candid confession.

—— Jessica Mann , BookOxygen

Highly readable, no-holds barred tale.

—— Jenny Comita , W Magazine

Nicolson has written a poignant and courageous history.

—— Daily Telegraph

The most enjoyable book to take on holiday would undoubtedly be Juliet Nicolson’s A House Full of Daughters… It is ideal holiday reading.

—— Lady Antonia Fraser , Guardian

A simple premise looking at seven generations of women in one family, but it's got all the juicy bits of several novels in one

—— Sarah Solemani , You Magazine

[An] ambitious memoir.

—— Lady, Book of the Year

An entrancing book… A poignant, well-written memoir-cum-social history

—— Sebastian Shakespeare , Daily Mail, Book of the Year

A fine family memoir.

—— Daily Mail

This engrossing book charts seven generations of a family who were obsessive documenters of their lives through diaries, letters, memoirs and autobiographical novels… Interwoven with the personal is a portrait of society’s changing expectations of women, and the struggle to break free from patriarchy. Here, brilliantly laid bare, are both the trials of being a daughter and of documenting daughterhood in all its complexity.

—— Anita Sethi , Observer

A charming book about the female side of Nicolson’s family tree.

—— i
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