Harry Mount's Odyssey

Harry Mount's Odyssey: Ancient Greece in the Footsteps of Odysseus is a journey round Greece inspired by the heroes, locations and tales of the Odyssey and tracing ancient Greek civilization at its height. Architecture, art, sculpture, economics, mathematics, science, metaphysics, comedy, tragedy, drama and epic poetry were all devised and perfected by the Greeks. Of the four classical orders of architecture, three were invented by the Greeks and the fourth, the only one the Romans could come up with, was a combination of two of the former.The powerful ghost of ancient Greece still lingers on in the popular mind as the first great civilization and one of the most influential in the creation of modern thought. It is the starting block of Western European civilization. In his new Odyssey, eminent writer Harry Mount tells the story of ancient Greece while on the trail of its greatest son, Odysseus. In the charming, anecdotal style of his bestselling Amo, Amas, Amat and All That, Harry visits Troy, still looming over the plain where Achilles dragged Hector's body through the dust, and attempts to swim the Hellespont, in emulation of Lord Byron and the doomed Greek lover, Leander. Whether in Odysseus's kingdom on Ithaca, Homer's birthplace of Chios or the Minotaur's lair on Crete, Mount brings the Odyssey - and ancient Greece - back to life.

Harry Mount studied ancient and modern history and classics at Magdalen College, Oxford, where he gained a First. He has written a number of books including Amo, Amas, Amat and All That (Short Books), A Lust for Windowsills (Little Brown) and How England Made the English (Viking). He is a former New York correspondent for The Daily Telegraph and now writes regularly for the Spectator, The Daily Telegraph and The Daily Mail.

Introduction: from Heathrow to Troy 1 Bye-bye, Penelope 2 From Europe to Asia - by Breast Stroke 3 Greece 1 Rome 0 4 Shakespeare's Classical Education 5 My Great-Grandfather's Cenotaph at Gallipoli 6 In Search of Priam's Troy 7 In the Wake of Odysseus 8 Sex Life in Ancient Greece 9 Homer - The Early Years 10 How Homer Conquered the World 11 It was all Greek to Jesus 12 Mykonos - the Party's Only 13 Into the Marble Mountain 14 The Athenian Miracle 15 A Marathon Effort 16 The Decline and Fall of Plato's Athens 17 Greek Tiger Mothers - the Sparton Guide to Bringing Up Baby 18 Scylla and Circe Get An Italian Makeover 19 The Sicilian Cyclops 20 Going Home to Ithaca 21 Calypso's Lament Bibliography Acknowledgements