Oxbow Says : Robin Lane Fox's previous books - Alexander the Great , Pagans and Christians in the Mediterranean World and The Unauthorised Versian: Truth and Fiction in the Bible - have set him in good stead for this epic history of the classical world. The book encompasses the entire breadth of classical history, from the archaic Greek world to the Imperial Roman world. Robin Lane Fox makes this enormous topic endlessly fascinating, his narrative is engaging and amusing, and the move away from a thematic structure makes the book wholly approachable when compared to some other histories. The book begins with Homer, whose work was recognised as 'classic' even by those who lived in the classical era. After a look at the pre-classical world, Lane Fox moves on to the emergence of classical Greece in the fourth and fifth centuries BC, examining the important social, cultural and political themes that characterised it. We are then taken through the Hellenistic world, and onto the Roman Republic and Empire, to look in detail at the evolution of the Roman classical age. The story ends with Hadrian in AD 138, and a retrospective of the classical world as seen though his eyes. This is a well-written, well-paced book, ideal for all those with an interest in what we now refer to as the classical world. An excellent commentary on the illustrations is included at the back of the book.