Love, sex & tragedy How the ancient world shapes our lives

In this provocative challenge to both classical scholars and inhabitants of modern Western culture, Goldhill (Univ. of Cambridge) presses questions of identity and body image; Christianity and the Bible; democracy and criticism; entertainment and tragedy; and national and personal identity in modern societies based on the pattern of ancient Greece and Rome. Several key themes emerge. One is the way the modern West is based on the foundation of ancient cultures that nevertheless remain strange and foreign to contemporary Western culture. Another is that classical scholars follow lines of thinking and analysis--primacy of male values and commitments, limited political consciousness, and Romantic illusions--that distance them from their own societies and from their ancient subject matter. A final theme is that self-awareness and historical knowledge can serve each other. Thus one returns to Goldhill's question: "What is the relevance and use of classical studies?" The question positions readers to ask what classical scholars can contribute to contemporary self-understanding in order that people may overcome their pervasive amnesia about the past. This book will stimulate but not direct undergraduate and graduate classical scholars as well as all scholars struggling to become self-aware. ^BSumming Up: Recommended. Upper-level undergraduates and above; general readers. L. J. Alderink Concordia College

For Goldhill, the classics are indispensable to an understanding of today?s Western culture. Without a knowledge of basic Greek and Roman texts and ideas, our ?buried life? and ?ancient grounding,? the modern citizen is lost?a child forever. Goldhill, a professor of Greek culture and literature at Cambridge, organizes his thesis around five questions: Who do you think you are? Where do you think you are going? What do you think should happen? What do you want to do? Where do you think you came from? Time and again, Goldhill reminds us, the brightest thinkers through the ages have turned to the classics for inspiration. In the New World, the founding fathers were steeped in the intellectual material of Greece and Rome. George Washington found inspiration in the story of the Roman emperor Cincinnatus?a farmer who was called to service, defeated an enemy, then laid down his arms and returned to the farm. Goldhill views Victorian England as the high-water mark of classical influence; some 80% of school time in 19th-century Britain was devoted to the classics. On the dark side of classicism is National Socialism: there, Goldhill argues, the ideas of Plato?s Republic (with its emphasis on a perfect social order) played out to a calamitous end. With patient authority and a refreshingly light touch, Goldhill brilliantly illuminates the essential timeliness of these ancient ideas. (Oct.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.