H D F Kitto, The Greeks

“The Greeks” is a 1951 non-fiction book on classical Greece by University of Bristol professor and translator HDF Kitto. The book was first published in hardback by Penguin Books, but has been republished in several formats since its initial publication. The Greeks serves as an introduction to the whole range of life in ancient Greece and established Kitto as one of the foremost Grecian scholars of his time.

Having read a number of books about the ancient world I still consider this to be one of the books that helped to make the classical world of Greece a more concrete concept in my mind despite being published in 1951. A great all round introduction for anyone with an interest in the subject.To understand about Classical Greece you must understand the polis. Kitto does a fine job of this. From this we can then build on the concepts of Greek community and the introduction of most famous of Greek concepts, democracy. This sense of freedom separated the Greeks from others, such as the Pursians. Their lavish rulers were considered barbarians. Barbarian comes from the Greek word “barbaros”, meaning non Greek speaker or the noises they made. Kitto explains that this is not a word of contempt, as we might use it. They may well have respected the Persians or the Egyptians, but they did not think like the Greeks.