- Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves: Women in Classical Antiquity by Sarah Pomeroy (1975). One of the first studies on women’s history of any place or period, this book was revolutionary when it was published, and is still seminal today.
- Courtesans and Fishcakes: The Consuming Passions of Classical Athens by James Davidson (1997). An exploration of the theme of desire and the Greek obsession with controlling it; a survey of all the things and people the Greeks desired.
- Greek Homosexuality by Kenneth Dover (1978; republished 2016). The classic work on this long-ignored, but very important, issue in Greek social history. The recent edition published by Bloomsbury has forewords by current experts contextualising the work and updating its conclusions.
- The Ecology of the Ancient Greek World by Peter Sallares (1991). A tremendously important (though not always well-written) study of the relationship between the environment, the realities of agrarian economy, and human society.
- The Invention of Coinage and the Monetization of Ancient Greece by David Schaps (2004). A useful and sane study of the development of currency and its role in Greek society.
- Ships and Silver, Taxes and Tribute: A Fiscal History of Archaic Athens by Hans van Wees (2012). An examination of early Athenian state finances that transcends its topic and explains much of the workings of early Greek states, their finances, their military operations, and the functioning of their pre-monetary economy.
- The Rise and Fall of Classical Greece by Josiah Ober (2015). An attempt to explain the spectacular wealth and impressive achievements of Classical Greece through models from economic theory and game theory.
- A Companion to Ancient Greek Government, edited by Hans Beck (2013). A collection of chapters on all aspects of Ancient Greek government – its different forms, institutions, practices, and values.
- Slaves and Slavery in Ancient Greece by Sara Forsdyke (2021). An overview of slavery in Greece, this book addresses the difficulties of studying this topic and aspects of enslaved lives like life while enslaved, status, and resistance.