It's all Greek to me

Consider the way we think: about right and wrong, about the nature of beauty, goodness, and truth.

What, in the end, it is to be a human being amid the immensity of the universe.

What it is to be mortal, to live for a brief while, and die.

All this, and more, we have learned from the ancient Greeks.

They moulded the basic disciplines and genres in which we still organise thought: from poetry to drama, from politics to philosophy, from history to medicine, and even ethnography.

Packed with useful cribs - history timelines; a who's who; a guide to the Greek gods; a map for those who struggle to know their Lemnos from their Lesbos - It's All Greek to Me is a bluffer's guide in one sense, a primer that will give you a helping hand around Greek democracy, or the Persian Wars, or the Parthenon.

But it is much more than that; it is a book of enthusiasms and pleasures, which aims to bring ancient Greece back into the mainstream of life - where it belongs.