Roderick Beaton - The Greeks: A Global History

A monumental, sweeping history of the Greeks covering more than three thousand years right up to the present day. Authoritative, compelling, and beautifully written. A wonderful book.

Peter Frankopan, author of The Silk Roads

A masterpiece, from a towering expert in all things Greek.

Gregory Nagy, Harvard University

Roderick Beaton has given us a wonderful big picture of the Greeks, with a very generous cross-cultural, temporal, and geographical sweep. At the same time, the books solid detail and careful distinctionsfor example, between the Platonic and the Christian vocabulary for virtueshould help in discouraging political exploitation of stilted, anachronistic ideas about Greek civilization.

Sarah Ruden, translator and author of Paul Among the People

Over three millennia, the locus of the Greek spirit has shifted perpetually. In antiquity it darted about between the cities, harbors, and mountain valleys of the east Mediterranean, moving eventually through the swathes of North Africa, the Levant, and southwest Asia where Alexander and his successors held sway. In modern times, it has flowed between the footloose global diaspora and the two volatile states which embody Greekness. In a tour de force, Beaton has managed to tie this story together in a single compelling narrative, written with deep affection and hard-earned knowledge of all things Greek.

Bruce Clark, author of Athens: A History

A remarkable and readable book: this single, masterful volume lays out the entire thirty-five-century history of the Greek-speaking peoples. From Minoan to modern times, their triumphs, their tragedies, and above all their endurance are all here. For anyone who wants to understand Greece today, this is the place to start.

Ian Morris, author of Why the West Rulesfor Now

Histories of the Greeks have so far been written with a classical or a modern bias, but Beaton does not play favorites: with the vantage-point of a scholar enjoying a deep knowledge of Byzantium as well as all phases of Greek literature, he weaves together a vivid narrative reaching from the age of heroes and lore down to the present. The Greeks emerge not as a single nation but rather as a series of great civilizations. They were often at odds with each other but, in all phases of their long history, contributed cultural capital to the rest of the world. Beatons Greeks are always on the move, self-reflexive, and surprising. Their story has not yet been told in a global fashion, as it is here.

Anthony Kaldellis, Ohio State University

Professor Beaton, already very well known as a formidable and distinguished exponent of modern Greek history, here expands exponentially his vision and chronological scope and turns his more than competent hand to composing a comprehensive history of Greeks, or rather Hellenes, from the Late Bronze Age BCE to the present day. His handsomely illustrated and fully documented text is a consistently illuminating encapsulation of the manifold achievements of one of the globes most creative and inspirational peoples.

Paul Cartledge, Cambridge University

Copyright 2021 by Roderick Beaton

Cover design by Chin-Yee Lai

Cover image Tarker / Bridgeman Images

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First Edition: October 2021

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Beaton, Roderick, author.

Title: The Greeks : a global history / Roderick Beaton.

Description: First edition. | New York : Basic Books, 2021. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2021012414 | ISBN 9781541618299 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781541618282 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: CivilizationGreek influences. | GreeceCivilization. | GreeksEthnic identity. | GreeceHistory.

Classification: LCC CB69 .B43 2021 | DDC 909dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021012414

ISBNs: 978-1-5416-1829-9 (print), 978-1-5416-1828-2 (ebook)

E3-20211004-JV-NF-ORI

This book is dedicated to all my Greek friends, acquaintances, former students, and colleagues, wherever they are in the world today, and to the memory of those who are no longer with us.

By so much has our city exceeded all mankind in matters of thought and speech, that her students have become the teachers of others; she has caused the name of Greeks to be understood, not in terms of kinship any more, but of a way of thinking, and people to be called Greeks if they share our educational system, rather than a common ancestry.

Isocrates, Panegyricus (Athens, 380 BCE)

There one can see a western European acquiring his ABCs, a Russian learning Greek, a Byzantine studying the works of the ancient Greeks, and an unlettered Greek learning to spell the ancient language correctly.

Anna Komnene, Alexiad (Constantinople, c. 1150)

The language given to me was Greek:

the poor mans home on Homers sandy shores.

My language is my single care on Homers sandy shores.

Odysseus Elytis, The Axion Esti (1959)

I do not say that we are of the same bloodbecause I have a horror of racial theoriesbut we still live in the same country and we see the same mountains ending in the sea.

George Seferis, speech accepting the Nobel Prize for Literature (1963)