Universal History attempts to explain the world beyond the immediate surroundings of the author. It reflects a desire to synthesise the mass of written and oral knowledge about the past and to introduce a systematic interpretation. This collection re-examines the notion of Universal Historiography with a focus on its appearance in the Greek and Roman world and on the legacy that ancient authors offered to later generations. Fifteen new essays by a diverse set of international scholars tackle questions of definition, illustrate the diversity of its forms, structures, themes and analyses, the historical and intellectual contexts which gave rise to universalist thought, and its reputation and reception in antiquity and beyond.Contributors: Errietta Bissa; Tim Cornell; Allegra de Laurentiis; Marco Di Branco; Jackie Elliott; Johannes Engels; John Farrenkopf; Andrew Fear; Marta Garcia Morcillo; Francois Hartog; Peter Liddel; Clemence Schultze; Brian Sheridan; Peter Van Nuffelen; Liv Yarrow.

Connop Thirlwall's 'History of Greece' appeared in eight volumes between 1835 and 1844 and ran to a second edition (1846-52). This single volume provides a representative selection from the original eight. Each selection has been edited to suit the conventions of modern scholarship, while Liddel's introduction places Thirlwall's history in the context of nineteenth-century historiography of ancient Greece. Liddel also examines Thirlwall's free-thinking intellectual background, and analyses his disavowal of certainty, his use of material evidence and analogy, and his sophisticated understanding of the relations between ancient and modern.