On the publication of this book in 1941, W.W. Tarn described it in the Journal of Roman Studies as "the most important [work] which has appeared in our time on the Hellenistic world....a very great book, alike in its vast learning, in the ease with which the author handles this huge and complex mass of often very refractory material, in the closeness of its reasoning, and in the sanity of its judgments." Forty-seven years later, it is still the most important comprehensive treatment of the Hellenistic world.