Werner Jaeger's classic three-volume work, originally published in 1939, is now available in paperback. Paideia, the shaping of Greek character through a union of civilization, tradition, literature, and philosophy is the basis for Jaeger's evaluation of Hellenic culture.

Volume I describes the foundation, growth, and crisis of Greek culture during the archaic and classical epochs, ending with the collapse of the Athenian empire. The second and third volumes of the work deal with the intellectual history of ancient Greece in the Age of Plato, the 4th century B.C.--the age in which Greece lost everything that is valued in this world--state, power, liberty--but still clung to the concept of paideia. As its last great poet, Menander summarized the primary role of this ideal in Greek culture when he said: "The possession which no one can take away from man is paideia."

"[Paideia] is intended for the general reader, and it is probably God's gift to educators, because it conveys to the reader, in a clear and attractive form, covering the ground comprehensively, a conception of the central point of view in Hellenic society and culture."

"The most illuminating work I have ever read on Greece."

Werner Jaeger, formerly of Harvard University and the Institute for Classical Studies Translated from the German by Gilbert Highe