30-Second Ancient Greece, Matthew Nicholls, (ed.), Ivy Press, Lewes, 2016, hardback, £14.99, ISBN 9781782403883

This compact, strikingly designed, authoritative text by a team of authors under the leadership of Dr Matthew Nicholls, an ancient historian based at the University of Reading, sets out to distil the essence of the history of Ancient Greece into ‘the fifty most important achievements of a timeless civilization, each explained in half a minute’. It is pitched at the general reader and encompasses an overview of the history and geography of the Greek world, people and society, myth and religion, literature, language and learning, architecture and buildings and the arts. Each carefully structured chapter has a glossary to help with unfamiliar terminology and concepts and a central biographical profile linked with the chapter’s theme. Themes are wide-ranging including ‘Greece in the Roman world’, ‘Greeks and Barbarians’, ‘Politics and Democracy’ and profiles include a variety of individuals ranging from Aristotle and Aspasia to Theodorus and Thucydides.

So, if you have twenty-five minutes to spare you might wish to check out for yourself how effectively this extraordinary, high- quality, high-speed induction into classical culture works for you. It might be viewed as a similar concept to other established publishing ventures such as those very short introductions to history series, but delivered in a radically condensed version. If it catches on, it might also prove capable perhaps of rescuing classical education from threatening oblivion and maybe even become the vehicle for promoting another neo-classical renaissance. However, teachers should ensure that it is kept well away from whoever is responsible for planning the timetable!