Greg Woolf is Professor of Ancient History at the University of St. Andrews. He is the author of Becoming Roman: The Origins of Provincial Civilization in Gaul (1998)  and Rome: An Empire’s Story (2012) as well as the co-editor of Literacy and Power in the Ancient World (with A. K. Bowman, 1994), Rome the Cosmopolis (with C. Edwards, 2003) and Ancient Libraries (with J.König, 2013).

"A work of fundamental importance for students of ancient ethnography. Summing Up: Essential. All levels/libraries." (Choice, 1 November 2011)"Woolf has rendered the topic in crisp and elegant prose. This reviewer suspects that, like good ancient ethnography, Woolf's contribution will very soon take on a life of its own." (Bryn Mawr Classical Review, 25 July 2011)“W. provides new insights into ancient texts, and stimulating new ways of looking at these ancient views of barbarians — chasing his ‘middle ground’ provides an exciting challenge for Romanists working with other fields of evidence.” (Britannia, May 2013)"With Greg Woolf’s brief Tales of the Barbarians we are at peace, but constantly made to sit up, not only by single opinions but by the overall ways in which Woolf asks us to read the material, in particular by his convincing stress on ‘the middle ground’ where explorers and natives have met, in western Europe and America." (Greece & Rome, April 2013)

• Translations Used Introduction 1Chapter 1: Telling Tales on the Middle Ground 8Chapter 2: Explaining the Barbarians 32Chapter 3: Ethnography and Empire 59Chapter 4: Enduring Fictions? 89Notes 119References 146General Index 164Index of Main Passages Discussed 168