About the book: 2001 / Pierre Vidal-Naquet (born in 1930) is one of the most prominent French historians, author of over twenty books on ancient and modern history. He became one of the first to introduce structural analysis into the study of ancient Greek history and clearly showed that the categories of the imaginary are sometimes more powerful than the illusions of reality. “The object of my research,” he writes, “is not a myth in itself, as is often thought, but a myth located at the intersection of thinking and society and, thus, helping the historian understand and analyze them.” The historian chose the problem as the central object of research transition to adult military service of Athenian and Spartan youths. This is how the “black hunter” was born - a young man in a black cloak, a character who combined the features of two mythical heroes - Melanthes and Melania. With the help of this capacious image, the author interpreted the rites of passage from one age group to another, showed their role in the religious, social and political life of ancient Greece. "Greece without miracles", closer to primitive peoples and cultures than to modern Europeans, and therefore viewed through the prism of anthropology - this is the slogan of the school to which P. Vidal-Naquet belongs and without whose achievements today it is difficult to imagine the science of antiquity. P. Vidal-Naquet is also not indifferent to the problems of our time. Published in Russian for the first time, his article “Atlantis and Nations” seems very relevant in our age of mass replication of nationalist theories and historical falsifications. The book will be of interest to both specialist historians and a wide range of readers who are concerned with issues of the history of civilization.