[JudgePenitent]

>the breadth and detail of history makes generalisations such as ‘western history begins with the Greeks’ a more palatable launchpad for consumption than breaking down the nuance that inevitably unfolds on more profound study

Absolutely. Your comment on Alexander is correct. It doesn't explain why we still do not teach pre Greek/Roman as a foundation. Yes Alexander encouraged the severing of cultural-historical links; today we can look for and around that, as we know a lot about the pre Greek/Roman civs, and they were arguably more important for setting the civilizational foundations upon which more fortunate individuals copied from.

I guess I wish the launchpad was "begin with the Sumerians".

[Archelaos]

I have been teaching European history (with an emphasis on the history of ideas) at university for almost two decades. In those cases were I dealt with the origins of "Europe" I started even earlier than the Sumerians: with the end of the last ice age.

As to the ancient Greeks: I am extremly impressed about how fast and innovative they had become from the 6th century BC onward. But in almost all fields their culture rested on outside precursors: Their mythology includes many stories and aspects that can be found in earlier stories or pictures from Asia Minor; their alphabet is an advancement of the Phoenicians, probably adopted via Cyprus; their early sculpture and metal works clearly shows Egyptian influences, etc.

History in my view is a discipline to tell interesting stories in anwsering interesting questions. And part of this story telling is to tell the stories of the terminology of the very question. So if someone is asking whether the Greeks are the start of the history of the Western world, one has already a lot to think about all the concept included in the question.

What defined being Greek in those days? -- Interesting story: the center of the early Greek culture was the west of Asia Minor which become incorporated for the first time in the Persian empire in the middle of the 6th century BC. Refuges went to southern Italy were they settled in close proximity to Etruscian towns. The Etruscians adopted their more sophisticated craftsmenship for luxury items. They traded it with the Celts from north of the Alps in exchange for iron. The economy in Italy benefited. Larger political units formed. After many struggles Rome emerged as the most supirior.

When does history start? -- Interesting story: People argued that it starts with writing and all else is prehistory, because it is writing which provides us with so much more knowledge about what happend in the past. But in recent years we have seen extraordinary progress in archeology. Both in an extraordinary number of new interesting finds as well as in an extraordinary advancement in new or improved research methods like in dating or genome analysis. In view of this, is the distinction between history and prehistory still appropriate?

Is the concept of the Western world in this context really so relevant? -- Interesting story: There has been a long standing story in Europe about a so-called 'translatio imperii', a gradual movement of the cultural and political center from the East to the West. But a similar story can be told about a movement from Greece towards the East: Alexander, the Sasanians, the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom (in todays Afganistan), the Indo-Greek Kingdom. And the cultural influence did not stop there. The art of the Greek statue and especially of the high relief was adopted by the Buddhist and Hindu art of India and Southeast Asia and even influenced Chinese art indirectly. If Greek culture travelled both towards the West and towards the East should we not put more emphasis on the Greeks as something that unites Europe, Africa and Asia instead of claiming them primarily for Europe or a Western world?

[JudgePenitent]

>>In those cases were I dealt with the origins of "Europe" I started even earlier than the Sumerians: with the end of the last ice age.

I applaud your breadth. The vast majority of instructors I've had prefer not noticing the broad trends that cultivated the soil for its people to prosper.

>> In view of this, is the distinction between history and prehistory still appropriate?

Great question- I'd say we do it for historical purposes!

>>If Greek culture travelled both towards the West and towards the East should we not put more emphasis on the Greeks as something that unites Europe, Africa and Asia instead of claiming them primarily for Europe or a Western world?

This is a world I know little of, the connections between Greece and Asia. You've piqued my interest in the subject; any good reads that deal with it?

[Archelaos]

> The vast majority of instructors I've had prefer not noticing the broad trends that cultivated the soil for its people to prosper.

I observe a trend away from this, at least here in Germany. A symptom of this is that museums and exhibitions nowadays put things into a much broader context than previously. Typically by explaining how far the raw materials of what is shown had travelled (eg. the blue of medieval illuminated manuscripts coming from Afgan lapis lazuli). But of course, there is much room for more improvement.

The most important cause for the spacial and termporal devisions we observe in the disciplin of history has nothing to do with exclusive ideology, but it is the fact that any research across such subdisciplinary borders is much more difficult than inside a subdisciplin. In case of ancient Greece: It is already very difficult to establish a good enough proficiency in Ancient Greek and Latin to study the "European" sources as well as accumulating the expert knowledge about the multiple aspects of the narrower Greek history.

My ambition was to gather expert knowledge in my research fields, but integrate that, at least when I was teaching students, into a wide horizon, where I rely on the expert knowledge of others.

This brings me to your question about good reads: My caveat is that I am all but an expert about the eastward influence of Ancient Greek culture. What I know I catched from various books.

If you can read German, you might be interested in the "Fischer Weltgeschichte"[1], published in 36 volumns from 1965 to 1983 (vol. 5, 6 and 16 are relevant for your question). However, they need to be read with not only one but some grains of salt, because much of their contents is outdated. Nevertheless, their authors have been leading experts in their fields of study at the time. So the books are still often much better than more recent introductions.

For the history of Central Asia a very nice overview is Susan Whitfield's "Silk Roads: Peoples, Cultures, Landscapes"[2]. It is not specific about the Greek influence to the East, but if you are new to this topic, it is perhaps a better idea to start broader.

I first learned, if I remember it correctly, about the Greeco-Roman high relief travelling eastwards, when reading E.H. Gombrich: "The Story of Art"[3] -- the best introduction into global art history I know of.

[1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer_Weltgeschichte

[2] ISBN-10: 0500021570, ISBN-13: ‎978-0500021576.

[3] "The Story of Art" was first published in 1950 and is still available. There exists a cheap pocket edition in smaller sizes, small font and small images, which I cannot recommend: the illustrations are too small. Go for the normal edition. Chances are good that you find a cheap one at your local Antiquarian bookshop.