Ancient Greece

N.E.R. Fisher surveys the historiographical treatments of these ancient democratic states, in this month's Reading History.

There is evidence, argues Adrian Tronson, to suggest that the 13th-century Mali empire, and its ruler Sundiata, were strongly influenced by the life of Alexander the Great, 356-323 BC, an influence that was to be capitalised on in the late 1950s.

'A people's prospects are affected by its image of its past' - Arnold Toynbee presents an exclusive extract from his book on the Greek sense of the past, The Greeks and Their Heritages.

Neither the Greeks nor the Romans paid much attention to the achievements or customs of the peoples that they conquered. As Jenny Morris shows here, in the case of their Jewish subjects this indifference caused problems that had both religious and political repercussions.

Charles Seltman traces the idea of the ruler not only great but good—helper and protector of his subjects—back to Alexander of Macedon.