What sorts of books inspired you as a child?
When I was small, I mainly read comics and game books. The first novel that made a deep impression was My Sweet-Orange Tree by Jos¨¦ Mauro de Vasconcelos.

Which books spurred you to study the ancient world?
If I had to choose a single book, it would be Plato¡¯s Phaedo. It was a present from my father ¨C I have a clear memory of how I discovered it at the age of 17. But it was my encounter with Greek theatre that converted me to ancient history, particularly the production of Aeschylus¡¯ Oresteian trilogy by Ariane Mnouchkine¡¯s Th¨¦?tre du Soleil when I was 14.

Which works on ancient history do you constantly find yourself returning to?
The complete works of Nicole Loraux, and particularly The Divided City: On Memory and Forgetting in Ancient Athens and The Invention of Athens: The Funeral Oration in the Classical City. I would also mention the work of Jean-Pierre Vernant and, although his influence on me is different and less direct, Moses Finley. But the recourse to antiquity by non-historians ¨C Michel Foucault, of course, or Jacques Ranci¨¨re ¨C is just as inspiring.

Your new book, ¡®¡¯, explores the central role of ¡®public slaves¡¯ in ancient Athenian democracy. What is a good general account of the development of democracy?
That is difficult, because we are not really talking about a continuous history. Is democracy the same thing throughout? An Athenian observing our political system would laugh at the idea that we call it ¡°democracy¡±. And few books have tried to offer a global history of democracy from antiquity up until now. There have, however, been two successful but very different recent attempts: Paul Cartledge¡¯s Democracy: A Life and Luciano Canfora¡¯s Democracy in Europe.

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What are the key texts about slavery in ancient Greece?
If we are talking about ancient texts, no author devoted a whole book to the subject. The slave can be found here and there in the byways of major works such as Aristotle¡¯s Politics, obviously, and Plato¡¯s Laws, but also Sophocles¡¯ Oedipus Rex. But for the historian, the most interesting texts are epigraphic ¨C inscriptions. Among modern historians, there¡¯s obviously Moses Finley (Ancient Slavery and Modern Ideology), even though one might dispute many of his claims, and, paradoxically, the work of someone who isn¡¯t a specialist in antiquity: Orlando Patterson¡¯s Freedom in the Making of Western Culture.

What is the last book you gave as a gift, and to whom?
James Salter¡¯s All That Is, for a friend¡¯s 40th birthday. It¡¯s one of the most beautiful books I¡¯ve read over the past few years.

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What books do you have on your desk waiting to be read?
On my desk, I essentially keep books for work, with Malick Ghachem¡¯s The Old Regime and the Haitian Revolution at the top of the pile. But there¡¯s also a book at the foot of my bed that I keep promising myself I¡¯m going to read, though so far without success: Thomas Pynchon¡¯s Gravity¡¯s Rainbow.

Paulin Ismard is associate professor in Greek history at ±Ê²¹²Ô³Ù³ó¨¦´Ç²Ô-Sorbonne University ¨C Paris 1. His latest book is (translated by Jane Marie Todd, Harvard University Press).