The ancient Greeks were exceptional and they were consequential. This innovative, engrossingly written book addresses head-on the problematic question of the Greek Miracle. It will appeal to anyone interested in the ancient world and its modern meaning. Reviel Netz boldly argues that the traditional understanding of the Greek legacy as a store of timeless values is false to the Greek literary canon itself. The latter is in fact made up of contradictory texts, sharing no common core of beliefs. This is precisely, for the author, the canon's significance: by presenting a system of works-in-polemic, it created a template for a culture of open debate, leading all the way down to modern civil society. The most lasting result of this practice of open discourse was in science, where Greek disputations paved the way for an autonomous scientific culture and opened the door both to the scientific revolution and the modern world.
The ancient Greeks were consequential – not by creating 'timeless values', but by questioning them. This book is for anyone interested in the ancient world and its modern meaning and follows the history of science and of the literary canon to reveal how the Greeks set off a train of progress.
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'This is a short and punchy book on a significant and controversial topic by one of the greatest Classical scholars of our time. It is clear-headed, clearly argued and robust. The book confronts through the prism of a great expert's command of Greek science and mathematics a theme which was once completely normative but has now become highly contested. Its approach to the special exceptionalism of Classics in Western culture as something both necessary and problematic is superbly handled, as is the author's willingness to extend way beyond Classics into the Classical Tradition, broadly interpreted, at much later moments and to confront scholarship's awkwardness around de-colonizing the discipline, as well as the variety of insalubrious appropriations of Classics especially from the far right. It will be widely read and widely disagreed with.' Jas' Elsner, University of Oxford 'In Why the Ancient Greeks Matter, Reviel Netz offers a lively and original discussion, interrogating the notions of the 'Greek miracle' and the Greek canon. As always, Netz is erudite, insightful, and engaging. Here he is also intentionally provocative, asking important and timely questions.' Liba Taub, University of Cambridge
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The Greeks were consequential, not by creating 'timeless values' but by questioning them, thereby laying the foundations of modern science.
List of Figures and Captions; Acknowledgements; Preface;
1. The
problematic Greek miracle;
2. A less problematic miracle: Greek science;
3. A
less problematic canon: from the polis of letters to civil society;
4.
Post-miracle; Bibliography; Index.
REVIEL NETZ is Patrick Suppes Professor of Greek Mathematics and Astronomy in the Department of Classics at Stanford University. He is the author of many celebrated books, including (with William Noel) the bestselling The Archimedes Codex: Revealing the Secret of the World's Greatest Palimpsest (Wiedenfeld & Nicolson, 2007, winner of the Neumann Prize), and the path-breaking The Shaping of Deduction in Greek Mathematics (1999, winner of the Runciman Award), Scale, Space and Canon in Ancient Literary Culture (2020, winner of the 2021 Classical Studies category PROSE Award), and A New History of Greek Mathematics (2022, shortlisted for the Runciman Award), all published by Cambridge University Press.
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