Polis: A New History of the Ancient Greek City-State from the Early Iron Age to the End of Antiquity

by John Ma

736 pages, Paperback

Published April 28, 2026

About the author

A specialist in the history of the ancient Greek world and its broader context (including the ancient near-east), John Ma is Professor of Classics at Columbia University, where he has taught since 2015. Before taking up his post at Columbia Ma worked at Corpus Christi College and the Faculty of Classics at Oxford for fifteen years. Before that, he worked in the Classics Department at Princeton (during which period he lived in New York). He received a B.A. (Literae Humaniores) and D.Phil. (Ancient History) from Oxford University.