What would become Plato the Myth Maker began as a collaboration between Luc Brisson and Marcel Detienne.

[1] The story of Atlantis is the starting point for a lexicographical study of Plato's conception of muthos, or myth.

The second half of the book concerns logos, which Plato used in contrast with muthos and regarded as the superior of the two.

[2] Pierre Ellinger wrote in L'Homme that Plato the Myth Maker benefits greatly from its methodology which draws from communication theory.

[3] In The Review of Politics, Edward Andrew called it "a remarkably fine book, always thought-provoking even when it remains captive to the mythology of scientific scholarship".