The Greek World: Classical, Byzantine, and Modern (Ed. Robert Browning)

Hard Cover. First edition. Published 1985 by Thames and Husdon Inc, NY. 367 illustrations, 70 in colour. 297 photographs, drawings and maps with an impressive list of contributors from noted scholars. A wonderfully illustrated book that celebrates the history, culture and achievements of the Greeks and links Greece and the Greek people of different periods from ancient times to the modern world. Condition: Very good (see all images). Solid book with smyth sewn bindings made to last. Nice cloth bound book with gilted front design and lettering on spine. Clean. Pages intact. No markings. Dust jacket is also in good condition.1950g. 31x23x3.5cm 

“Nobody is untouched by the heritage of Greece, which has inspired and shaped so much of Western science, art and philosophy.

Yet who are the Greeks? The modern visitor to Greece is often surprised by the variety of what he finds: Frankish castles next to Doric temples; a tiny Byzantine church set in the ruins of a Hellenistic market-place; ancient Sparta side by side with medieval Mistra. What part have all these played in Greek history? Who were the men who built the Parthenon, or those who died on the walls of Constantinople, fighting for a doomed Hellenic empire? Are the families who have built up one of the most prosperous merchant navies in the world of the same race as Odysseus?

This book draws together these many fragments to present the entire Greek experience. An international team of twelve contributors- all preeminent specialists - analyse, under the direction of Professor Robert Browning, every facet of Greek history, life and culture. They are aided by a magnificent array of pictures, seventy in full color, which set the latest discoveries beside the acknowledged masterpieces and vividly depict the extraordinary Greek landscape, the art and the people.

Here is that deceptively beautiful land, whose sparseness has molded the enterprise of its people; here are the gold masks of Bronze Age Mycenae; here the gods and athletes, the temples and theaters of the first dazzling climax of European civilization, in 5th century BC Athens; here are the subtle minds and sophisticated art of the Hellenistic world, where the Greeks were the custodians of learning; here the shimmering riches of Byzantium, where artists have never more successfully caught the meeting of human and divine.

We follow the story of Greece through the four dark centuries of Ottoman domination to a time of far reaching diaspora that promised fresh life in the future. Greece's struggle for independence in the 1820s captured the imagination of the West. And since then she has taken her own special place in the world, guardian of a cultural heritage without parallel and mother country to Greek communities all round the world.