JONES, Peter Eureka!: everything you ever wanted to know about the Ancient Greeks but were afraid to ask Atlantic Books, 2014 383pp $35.00 ISBN 9781782395140
Peter Jones is a Cambridge educated classics scholar who writes a regular column on the ancient and the modern for the Spectator. He is an experienced writer with a deep and reliable knowledge. His book summarises 2000 years of history up to about 27 BC. It is informative, sensibly written, and helpfully breaks up the information and the historical narrative into paragraphs that have headings. It is not daunting at all. He has the good sense to offer fine-grained details among an expansive historical sweep through dark and bronze ages, the rise of democracy, the Peloponnesian wars, the rise of the city states, the arrival of Alexander the Great and the ‘Hellenistic Age’, the conquest by Romans and the end of Alexander’s empire. Along the way you will meet Aesop, Greek theatre, the thoughts of Plato, the mystery of Atlantis, and Aristotle, said to be one of the cleverest men who ever lived. His nickname, offered by Plato, was ‘The Brain’. You will learn of the stoics and epicureans too, and you will realise that we might still be living in a Hellenistic Age. Highly recommended for all ages.
reviewed by Kevin Brophy