Athens in the Classical Period – 3rd Edition
Athens In The Classical Period was written by students, for students. It is aimed at those studying the OCR Classical Greek GCSE course (and other GCSE and A-level Classics courses) and aims to address a lack of study material available for the culture exam. The book serves as an accessible and foundational overview of classical Greek society, with a focus on Athens, and covers all the major themes of ancient life, from people to politics to parties. The book also includes appendices on exam preparation, to help prepare students for GCSE and A-level exams in Classics, History and related subjects.
- Description
- Images
Athens in the Classical Period is unique in that it was written for students, by students. We wrote the book while studying and revising for the culture paper of the OCR Classical Greek GCSE, and published the first edition in 2014. There were significant changes to be made to the formatting and some of the content over the next few years, and we now feel that the book holds itself at a much more professional standard.
The book has been downloaded around 1000 times on Kindle, and a paperback version has just been released at the end of December 2019.
The book is aimed at students of the OCR Classical Greek GCSE course (and other GCSE and A-level Classics courses), who lack an accessible overview of ancient Greek society. The course, and the book, focus on Athens and its interactions with Sparta in particular. The book covers topics from occupations to democracy, the role of women and slaves, and cultural features such as theatre and symposia. It aims to relate the essentials of all these topics with dry wit and interesting examples to improve engagement. The chapters also include quotations from ancient authors that might feature on the language element of the syllabus, while the appendices contain resources for analysing sources and answering exam questions.
The simple and accessible style is appealing to readers at GCSE level; we wrote the essentials of the current edition while taking the course ourselves, and understand the demands of the syllabus and the information that we wish we had known then.
The book therefore acts as a “one-stop-shop” for teachers looking to compile resources for their students, whether for Classics lessons or at GCSE and A-level. The information is available elsewhere – often buried in denser specialist works or online – but it has rarely been compiled in such a straightforward and complete way.
