N.G. Wilson gives “an account of what happened to Greek literature from the end of the ancient world until the time of its reappearance in western Europe during the Renaissance.” Since the Byzantine Empire is usually regarded for preserving this cultural inheritance, he sets out to “explain why the Byzantines thought it worthwhile to act as they did and how they set about their task.” He touches on literature, history of education, book makers, language script, school curricula, and much more over the course of a millennium from the schools of Late Antiquity to the Palaeologan Revival.