A Culture of Freedom ─ Ancient Greece and the Origins of Europe

Christian Meier is one of Europe's preeminent authorities on the classical world. A Culture of Freedom marks the apex of his lifelong research on ancient Greek culture. Beginning with a section on medieval and modern Europe's enormous inheritance of Greek institutions and ideas, the book moves on to chronicle the rise of Greek civilization from the Bronze Age to the Greco-Persian wars. Throughout, the author provides fresh insight into the "Greek miracle," as he illuminates the well-known features of Greek culture--from epic and lyric poetry to warfare, athletics, philosophy, religion, and democracy. What made these achievements possible and so enduring? Meier argues that across the whole range of human experience--in politics and philosophy no less than in war, sport, and religion--there was one common denominator among the ancient Greeks: an attempt to find compromise, balance, and understanding in the face of problems others usually solved by means of power. A Culture of Freedom is an original and learned portrait of a civilization that still captivates and inspires.

Christian Meier, Emeritus Professor of Ancient History at the University of Munich, is the author of Caesar: A Biography, Athens: A Portrait of the City in Its Golden Age, and From Athens to Auschwitz: The Uses of History.