Jacob Burckhardt (1818-1897) is perhaps the most preeminent historian of classical and Renaissance culture. In a famous series of lectures in 1872, he presented this revolutionary work, which he dramatically renounced in his lifetime, fearing a hostile reception by other critics who had romanticized the world of Ancient Greece.

Rejecting the notion that a popular democratic state had in fact existed, Burckhardt portrayed ancient Greek culture as an aristocratic world based on ruthless competition for honor, which led, in turn, to a tyrannous state with minimal personal freedoms.

Burckhardt's landmark work, the culmination of thirty years of scholarship by a leading Oxford historian, Oswyn Murray, offers not only a rich cultural history of a fascinating society, but also a useful text for our own society struggling with its own democratic excesses.