The two-volume work of Sarantos Kargakos, an esteemed historian from Laconia, totaling 1600 pages, comes to cover with admirable vividness and scientific depth the history of the city-state of Sparta, which, along with the city of Athens, formed the duality around which, for the most part, ancient Greek life was woven in its rich and varied expressions.

The book covers the history of Sparta from mythical times and the pre-Dorian era to the 4th century AD. A central element of the writing is the thorough examination of sources up to 2005. Based on this vast "material," where ancient writers take precedence, K. Kargakos analyzes the narrated events prismatically and gives his writing a characteristic multi-layered form.

Thus, its history is not only military and partially political but is also economic, religious, and demographic, as it must be for a society in continuous action. This enables him to refer to many unknown or obscure figures and facets of Spartan history.

The work is embellished with rare and simultaneously rich photographic material, as well as rare lithographs, sourced exclusively from the author's archive. All of the above is framed by the known literary grace, clarity, and personal style of the renowned historian K. Kargakos, who manages, despite the volume of the work, to make the "History of Ancient Sparta" accessible and enjoyable to those who read it, without diminishing the scientific prestige of the work in the least.