Alien Wisdom (Cambridge University Press)

In this classic study of cultural confrontation Professor Arnaldo Momigliano looks at the attitude of the Greeks to four different civilizations - the Roman, Celtic, Jewish and Persian - and analyses their cultural and intellectual interactions from the fourth to the first centuries BC. He argues that in the Hellenistic period the Greeks, Romans and Jews formed a special exclusive relationship and effectively established what until recent times was the normal horizon of Western civilization.