Victor David Hanson, a professor of Classical History at the University of California, covers a millennium of Greek wars in this excellent and bold work, from the emergence of the Greek city-state to the rise of Alexander the Great, his conquests, and the Hellenization of the barbarian world.

From the Messenian wars, the battle at the Lelantine Plain, the battle of Hysiae, the battle of Delium, the Ionian Revolt, the battle of Salamis, the battles of Marathon and Thermopylae, the naval battle of Salamis, the battles of Plataea and Mycale, the battle of Coronea, it reaches the fratricidal Peloponnesian War and concludes with the campaign and conquests of Alexander the Great up to India, claiming that whatever the West knows about the art of war, it has learned from the Greeks.