Book excerpt: The ancient Greek world consisted of approximately 1,000 autonomous polities scattered across the Mediterranean basin, and each one developed its own, unique set of socio-political institutions and social practices. The Oxford History of the Archaic Greek World offers twenty-one detailed studies of key sites from across the Greek world between c. 750 and c. 480 BCE--a crucial period when much of what is now seen as distinctive about Greek culture emerged. All the studies in this seven-volume series use the same structure and methodology so that readers can easily compare a wide range of Greek communities. The series thus offers a new and unique resource for the study of ancient Greece that will transform how we study and think about a crucial era in ancient Greek history.