Review by Booklist Review
Why should twenty-first-century readers care about Caligula or Commodus, Sappho or Sophocles? In this thought-provoking collection of essays and book reviews, Cambridge classicist Mary Beard explores the reasons that ancient Greece and Rome still matter. Finding surprising substance even in Asterix cartoons, Beard convincingly establishes the Roman Forum and the Greek Agora as settings for clarifying issues still vexing the modern world. In the ancient debate over how Cicero invoked emergency powers to quash the Catilinarian conspiracy, for instance, readers find the same issues now perplexing lawmakers debating whether national security justifies abridgment of constitutional rights. Elsewhere in the gender issues swirling around Livia's crimes, the public-relations tactics transforming fierce Octavian into dignified Augustus, the hermeneutical problems surrounding Thucydides' history of the Peloponnesian War readers repeatedly discover that visiting classical antiquity means seeing modernity more fully. Though far from seamless, Beard's organization of her essays and reviews into four thematic sections unifies and focuses her wide-ranging forays. Lively and engaging, Beard's scholarship brings Pericles, Antony, Nero and other ancient titans back to life.--Christensen, Bryce Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Offering up 30 years of pointed insights and inquisitions, Cambridge classics professor Beard (The Fires of Vesuvius) returns with a collection of primarily reprinted reviews of her classicist peers' work that somehow manages to touch on nearly every notable person, place, and event associated with the Ancient world. But for Beard, while the classics have always been a dialogue with the dead, "the dead do not include only those who went to their graves two thousand years ago." Rather, "the study of the Classics is the study of what happens in the gap between antiquity and ourselves." It's the back-and-forth sparring between betweeded Oxford dons, it's Picasso and Shakespeare, it's Ben-Hur and Gladiator-it's anything that engages in or, as the wonderful title suggests, confronts that gilded and gargantuan Greco-Roman world. So, the chapter about King Minos's legendary palace is much more concerned with how and why Arthur Evans decided to elaborately, and disastrously, restore the site in the early 20th century. The discussion of Cleopatra turns around history's ever-changing, mostly guessing portrait, and ends with Beard finally advising that we just "stick with the Augustan myth and Horace's 'demented queen.' " And then there's her fascinating, gentle dig at the "obsessive, retiring Victorian academic" Charles Frazer. All in all, a smart, adventuresome read. Illus. & photos. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
This collection comprises a decade's worth of Beard's (classics, Univ. of Cambridge; The Fires of Vesuvius: Pompeii Lost and Found) book reviews, mostly from the Times Literary Supplement and the New York Review of Books, plus one lecture not previously published. Owing to her characteristic friendly yet probing style, Beard is well known as a popularizer of classical studies. These reviews are ideal for providing a basic understanding of classical studies, as they not only pinpoint the strengths and weaknesses of the books she reviews but also elucidate the sometimes tricky nuances of current approaches in the field. Of course, much of the content is specific to the books being reviewed, but the work follows a chronological arrangement, with the first section on ancient Greece, the next on early Rome, the third on Imperial Rome, and so forth, with later pieces focusing on the classicists themselves across the subsequent centuries. Therefore the book lends itself well to reading straight through, rather than being read as a disjointed collection. -VERDICT Not to be missed by fans of Beard, this will also appeal to readers generally interested in classical studies. [See Prepub Alert, 4/1/13.]-Margaret Heller, Domincan Univ. Lib., River Forest, IL (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
This collection by Beard (Classics/Cambridge Univ.; The Fires of Vesuvius: Pompeii Lost and Found, 2008, etc.) provides a traditional classical education, and there's no need to learn a dead language. Not only do the pieces illustrate the author's extensive knowledge of all things ancient, but they could also serve as a guide to writing highly literate book reviews. Beard's clear way of explaining times and people we may or may not have heard of makes learning not only fun, but satisfying, and her prose style is easy without being annoyingly breezy. She examines books on the decline of Latin and Greek studies and wonders why we bother reading about their decline when we really don't care about them anyway. By definition, classics are in decline, she notes, since they're about the art, culture, history and philosophy of the ancient world; yet, as we see in one excellent section of this book, constantly changing views and new translations keep interest alive. Among the other topics treated with enjoyable erudition: our fascination with Alexander the Great, in a version created by Rome; Cleopatra, more Greek than Egyptian; and Mark Antony, a foolish drunk. Beard also decries the difficulty of translating Thucydides and Tacitus, reveals that most of Cicero's writing was part of a single legal case and introduces us to Philogelos' joke book from A.D. 400. (Some things are always funny.) Beard's reviews confirm her knowledgeable professionalism as she decries the conjectures of biographers who write "careful ancient history," hedging all their bets with weaselly phrases such as "would have," "no doubt" and "presumably." While we're at it, we learn that the ancients weren't that great; they just had good spin doctors. Remember, the winner always writes the history. A top-notch introduction to some fairly arcane material, accessible but not patronizing.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
