Michael Scott

“The scourge of the massive (often unintended) holiday mobile-phone bill… should be at an end.”

“Recently I was greeted by a man who shook my hand in the limpest possible way.”

“It’s a polarising affair – people either love it or hate it.”

I’m a first-time father. My little one is now 10 months old.”

“It can easily feel like the globalisation that has defined the 20th and now 21st centuries is irreversible”

“The Italian island can teach the world how to treat new arrivals, says Dr Michael Scott”

“1. The Other Norman Conquest: More than one island’s history for transformed by a Norman invasion in the 1060s”

“Sicily is an incredible melting pot of ideas beliefs and peoples – which is why it is such a key focus for thought in 2016”

“Olympia, site of the ancient Olympic games, competes with the sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi for the accolade of being Greece’s most famous sacred space”

‘Think of Archimedes (c287–212/211 BC), and I bet the image you have is that of a man jumping naked out of his bath, running down the street shouting “Eureka!” (ancient Greek for “I have found it”).’

‘Even 2,500 years later, the tensions that were clear in Ancient Roman and Ancient Greek society show up in democratic governance

‘History is so often studied in isolated chunks, but that is not how it was experienced. Instead I want to offer an ancient global history, one that helps us understand how much we have always owed interaction with one another.’

“Globalisation is nothing new – it began with Confucius 2,500 years ago”

‘Ancient Greek Drama dealt with everything from murder and incest to sex and sausages. Yet, says Michael Scott, one theme above all dominated the performance of tragedies and comedies in democratic Athens: politics.’

In this article I explore the problems luxuries brought to Ancient Greek society. This article was written alongside my documentary, Guilty Pleasures: Luxury in the Ancient and Medieval Worlds.

‘Exactly 2500 years ago, a small Athenian army defeated a huge Persian invasion force in a clash that has been hailed as a turning point in world history. Michael Scott asks, how significant was the Battle of Marathon?’

In this article I explore my first experiences presenting television documentaries.

‘Michael Scott looks at how a time of crisis in the fourth century BC proved a dynamic moment of change for women in the Greek world.’

‘Historians who claim that the fifth century BC was the golden age of ancient Greece have missed a trick, says Michael Scott. As Scott argues in a new book out this month, some of the most crucial developments in classical Greek history did, in fact, occur a century later.’

‘The temple of Zeus at the sanctuary of Nemea has often been written off as a dull, inconsequential temple of the fourth century B.C. This article seeks to re-write the temple’s reputation by arguing that the temple was designed to bolster the sanctuary’s own chequered history during a period in which the sanctuary of Nemea was fighting for its survival. Religion and politics were fundamentally connected in the Greek world, as the story of the Nemean sanctuary shows.’

‘With the Olympics nearly here, we talk to one of the world’s foremost authorities on Ancient Greek culture about the way of life, the gods and Delphi’s famous oracle.’

‘Delphi, Michael Scott suggests, is still as oracular as ever.’