This excellent book proposes a new and comprehensive examination of the Greek dialogue between the mid-fourth century bce and the mid-first century ce, ‘roughly from Plato's death to the death of Philo of Alexandria’ (dustjacket). The volume thus fills a scholarly gap between the better-known dialogues by Plato and those of imperial authors such as Dio Chrysostom, Plutarch and Lucian. As J. states, this period remains relatively understudied despite an impressive body of surviving texts, including a rich papyrological record to which a whole chapter is dedicated (Chapter 2). The book is successful in its aim of collecting and examining the surviving evidence (p. 241) and puts forward the case that the perception of dialogue by imperial-era authors ‘was formed not exclusively by Plato, but also … by the heterogeneous post-Classical literature’ (p. 245). Overall, the volume stands as a fundamental guide to post-Platonic Greek dialogues and promises to open up this field of research.

The scope of the volume is ambitious, and J. faces the challenge of mapping a large and diverse body of material that is often fragmentary or known only via indirect sources. Despite these challenges, the analysis is solid, perspicacious and cautious when the evidence is indecisive. Given the pioneering nature of the work and the richness of the textual record, it may not be surprising that the arrangement of the material follows a rather conventional approach in that, after the introduction and an opening chapter on dialogue in relation to other literary forms (Chapter 1), the other chapters cover dialogues in papyri (Chapter 2), dialogues in the Academy (Chapter 3), Platonic Dubia and Appendix Platonica (Chapter 4), dialogues by Aristotle and the Peripatetics (Chapter 5), and dialogues by other schools and authors (Chapter 6). There are several cross-references across chapters (and with dialogues from outside the chosen time frame or with dialogues composed in Latin); still, it is hoped that readers will use the book as a tool to develop lines of research that cut across these boundaries.

An approach that cuts across philosophical schools and literary traditions is instantiated in Chapter 1, ‘Dialogic Entanglements’, where J. traces the ways in which dialogue ‘interacts and blends with other prose forms: anecdote, epistolography, and biography’ (p. 13). These are important and recurring themes in the book (for instance, biography, building on the work by A. Momigliano, emerges again in the chapter on the Peripatetics, p. 192) and are rightly understood in the context of Hellenistic literature (p. 243) and a ‘conscious intergeneric game’ (p. 38). I was particularly impressed with the section on the anecdote (chreia) and its bi-directional relationship with dialogue, via ‘extraction and condensation’ or ‘expansion of anecdotes into dialogues’ (p. 22). This is one of the areas in which it becomes clear that the impact of J.'s work will extend beyond the period covered, as her analysis spans from Xenophon to, for example, Dio Chrysostom and Athenaeus. The link between dialogue and chreia stands out as an important and understudied area in the broader context of the world of rhetoric and the school, on which J.'s work lays the foundation for further research.

Chapter 2, on dialogues surviving in papyri, is an admirable guide to a large body of texts that, although fragmentary and often of dubious chronology and authorship, have yet to be fully incorporated into our understanding of ancient dialogue, despite their huge potential. Some of these dialogues are, perhaps unsurprisingly, of philosophical content; J. groups others as ‘dialogues on literature’ (e.g. about the Homeric poems), ‘historical dialogues’ (i.e. set in the past and reviving historical circumstances and characters) and ‘dialogized anecdotes’, including ‘dialogized school exercises’ (p. 44). An aspect that stands out from this chapter is the link to the school that these texts demonstrate, with reference to ethopoiia and the world of rhetorical studies (pp. 69, 85–6).

Chapters 3 and 4, on the Academy and on Platonic Dubia and the Appendix Platonica, rightly demonstrate that the dialogue form continued to be used by Plato's followers and Middle-Platonists; these chapters bring to the fore the crucial dynamics of variatio or oppositio in imitando in relation to Platonic models, and the wide variety of formats that such dialogues took. At the same time, readers might have benefited from deeper engagement with Plato's dialogues and their diversity and, more broadly, with questions around the emergence and nature of both ‘Socratic’ and ‘non-Socratic’ dialogues. The analysis may have yet to reach its full potential in that, by not closely scrutinising concepts such as ‘Socratic dialogue’, ‘Platonic dialogue’ (p. 69), ‘Socratic origins’ (p. 9) or ‘typical Socratic features’ (p. 160), it does not go so far as to articulate how exactly post-Platonic dialogues can add to our understanding of the emergence, diversity, specificities and uses of this successful literary form across the centuries – even though this is a comprehensible omission given the chronological limits of the work and its already impressive coverage. (For instance, it would be instructive for readers to learn more about J.'s engagement with A. Ford, ‘The Beginnings of Dialogue: Socratic Discourses and Fourth-Century Prose’, in: S. Goldhill [ed.], The End of Dialogue in Antiquity [2008], pp. 29–44 – as well as A. Long's chapter in the same volume.)

Chapter 5, on Aristotle and the Peripatetics, is a much-needed and fresh assessment of the surviving evidence for the dialogues by Aristotle and his successors. J. discusses the available evidence, which is not limited to the usual suspect (Cicero), but rightly extends to later witnesses such as Basil of Caesarea and Elias, and re-examines inherited scholarly views, ultimately dismissing the concept of a post-Platonic ‘decline’ (p. 164) and drawing a helpful dividing line between knowns and unknowns within Aristotle's dialogues – the former include polished style, the presence of authorial prefaces and literary engagement with Plato and Greek literature (p. 178). This chapter makes for a worthwhile read as an independent piece, and it is hoped that it will be widely used by students and scholars in a range of fields including ancient philosophy and Greek literature.

This learned volume will become a point of reference for the Greek dialogue after Plato and before the developments by imperial-era authors. This valuable and pioneering study demonstrates that the continued use of the dialogue form cannot be understood in terms of a post-Platonic decline. It will serve both students and researchers, and it will open the way to a range of research questions, such as the motivations behind the choice of the dialogue form and its effects on its audiences, the links with the world of rhetoric and the school, the use of female voices (e.g. p. 41), the argumentative strategies that dialogues employ, and the potential developments over time and in different contexts, not least across different philosophical schools. The volume is well produced and includes a general index and a useful index locorum.