''The Greeks'' is a 1951 non-fiction book on
classical Greece
Classical Greece was a period of around 200 years (the 5th and 4th centuries BC) in Ancient Greece,The "Classical Age" is "the modern designation of the period from about 500 B.C. to the death of Alexander the Great in 323 B.C." (Thomas R. Martin ...
by
University of Bristol professor and translator
H. D. F. Kitto
Humphrey Davy Findley Kitto, Fellow of the British Academy, FBA (6 February 1897 – 21 January 1982) was a British classical scholar of Cornish people, Cornish ancestry. He was born in Stroud, Gloucestershire.
He was educated at The Crypt School, ...
.
[Cited on the back cover of the Pelican paperback edition, 1970] The book was first published as a hardback copy by
Penguin Books
Penguin Books is a British publishing house. It was co-founded in 1935 by Allen Lane with his brothers Richard and John, as a line of the publishers The Bodley Head, only becoming a separate company the following year.[Homer
Homer (; grc, Ὅμηρος , ''Hómēros'') (born ) was a Greek poet who is credited as the author of the '' Iliad'' and the '' Odyssey'', two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Homer is considered one of ...]
''
# ''
The Polis''
# ''Classical Greece: The Early Period''
# ''Classical Greece: The Fifth Century''
# ''The Greeks at War''
# ''The Decline of the Polis''
# ''The Greek Mind''
# ''Myth and Religion''
# ''Life and Character''
# ''Index''
Reception
The book's critical reception was positive, with the ''
Sunday Times
''The Sunday Times'' is a British newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News UK, whi ...
'' and ''Observer'' both praising ''The Greeks''; several textbooks list it as a source or recommended read on the subject of ancient Greece.
The
Princeton Alumni Weekly praised Kitto for "not
lossing Lossing is a surname. Notable people with this name include:
*Benson John Lossing (1813–1891), American historian, publisher, journalist, engraver, and antiquarian
* Frederick Lossing (1915–1998), Canadian chemist and mass spectrometrist
*John ...
over the failures and imperfections of the Greeks", and said the book would "delight the reader interested in things Greek with a fresh and vigorous approach to the classics".
The Greeks is mentioned in one of the best selling philosophy books of all times, Zen & The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974) by Robert Pirsig (USA). In chapter 29 Pirsig uses The Greeks to expand on one of his key concepts, that of Quality. He finds it to be aligned to the Old Greek concept of Virtue and the Hindu concept of Dharma.
References
1951 non-fiction books
Classical Greece
History books about ancient Greece
{{AncientGreece-book-stub