The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World is an original and provocative reconstruction of
1 400 years of classical antiquity. Sharply written it is a major intervention in Marxist
theories of class seeking to explain and illustrate the value of Marx’s general analysis of
society to ancient Greek studies. G. E. M. de Ste. Croix makes slavery central to the
achievements of the Greek city-states and wider classical civilisation. He traces the social
origins of Athenian democracy and advances an innovative explanation for the decline and fall
of the Roman Empire. Comparing the late Roman political system to a ‘vampire bat’ Ste. Croix
argues that serfdom and a tightening fiscal screw left the peasant masses indifferent to the
Empire’s fate. Widely reviewed and debated The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World was
hailed by the New York Review of Books as ‘the only work in a Western language that has ever
attempted to tell the story of the greatest part of the ancient world with the interests of the
lower classes as its central theme’.
