How the World Made the West

Ancient Greece and Rome are considered the parents of Western civilisation. But the ancient world was much more interconnected than we realise - a place of constant exchange, commerce and theft, sex, war and enslavement.

Journeying from the Levant of 2500 BC to the dawn of the Age of Exploration, Josephine Quinn argues that the roots of the West can be found in everything from Indian mathematics to the chariots of the Steppe, from Arabic poetry to the Phoenician art of sailing. The result is an epic and revelatory history of our shared past.

Review

A revelatory account of how the ancient world was much wider and more interconnected than traditionally thought - and the lessons that holds for today -- What to Read in 2024 ― Financial Times

Astounding . . . Both erudite and witty, sweeping and granular, this book is revisionist history at its best ― i-news

Quinn keeps the revelations coming at a fair lick . . . In 400 crisp pages, 30 societies are paraded before us with comparative reflection and world-weary wit. Better still, Quinn's book is polemical -- Pratinav Anil ― The Times

One of the most fascinating and important works of global history to appear for many years -- WILLIAM DALRYMPLE

Bold, beautifully written and filled with insights, How the World Made the West demands that we challenge traditional views of the past. An extraordinary achievement -- PETER FRANKOPAN

How the World Made the West has plenty of myths about the ancient world to dispel . . . The vicissitudes in each centre's fortunes make for a dynamic narrative, as cities that were once great are swept away, and new ones spring up in their wake -- Daisy Dunn ― Telegraph

An eye-popping, mind-blowing, ground-breaking juggernaut of an argument, from a writer ready to roar -- LUCY WORSLEY

About the Author

Josephine Quinn is Professor of Ancient History at the University of Cambridge, the first woman to hold this Chair. She has degrees from Oxford and the University of California, Berkeley, has taught in America, Italy and at Oxford, and co-directed the Tunisian-British archaeological excavations at Utica. She is a regular contributor to the London Review of Books, as well as to radio and television programmes. She is the author of one previous book, the award-winning In Search of the Phoenicians.