""In Greek history," says Mr. Robinson, "little that happened mattered much; it is what the Greeks thought that counted." It has counted so much, indeed, that no one of us can enter into his European cultural inheritance without some knowledge of what the Greeks thought. Study of the Greeks transcends antiquarianism: their experience is permanently relevant and perennially capable of providing illumination and direction for our own spiritual problems. It is upon this illumination that Mr. Robinson has focused his book; his aim is to present the aspects of Greek history that are of abiding and direct interest to the thoughtful modern. In the sense that a span requiring six stout volumes of the Cambridge Ancient Hstory is here dealt with in fewer than two hundred pages, this is a popularization; but it is a popularization of the right sort, done by a mature scholar whose more technical work compels respect for his general interpretations."--Foreword