Confronting the Classics: Traditions, Adventures and Innovations Main Edition
Author(s): Mary Beard (Author)
Publisher: Profile Books
Publication Date: 7 Mar. 2013
Edition: Main
Language: English
Print length: 384 pages
ISBN-10: 1781250480
ISBN-13: 9781781250488
Book Description
Mary Beard is one of the world’s best-known classicists – a brilliant academic, with a rare gift for communicating with a wide audience both though her TV presenting and her books.In a series of sparkling essays, she explores our rich classical heritage – from Greek drama to Roman jokes, introducing some larger-than-life characters of classical history, such as Alexander the Great, Nero and Boudicca. She invites you into the places where Greeks and Romans lived and died, from the palace at Knossos to Cleopatra’s Alexandria – and reveals the often hidden world of slaves. She takes a fresh look at both scholarly controversies and popular interpretations of the ancient world, from The Golden Bough to Asterix. The fruit of over thirty years in the world of classical scholarship, Confronting the Classics captures the world of antiquity and its modern significance with wit, verve and scholarly expertise.
Editorial Reviews
Review
She’s pulled off that rare trick of becoming a don with a high media profile who hasn’t sold out, who is absolutely respected by the academy for her scholarship … what she says is always powerful and interesting ― Guardian
She stands in the great tradition of myth-puncturing Latin classicists ―
New York Review of Books
Beard is a very funny and penetrating commentator … and has a fantastic knack for controversy. If they’d had Mary Beard on their side back then, the Romans would still have their empire ―
Daily Mail
Professor Beard … combines erudition with charm, wit and warmth in a way that’s rare in academia. — Rowan Pelling ―
Telegraph
Beard is the best…communicator of Classics we have ―
Independent on Sunday
witty, erudite collection…To Beard, the classical past is alive and kicking – and she has the great gift of being able to show just why classics is still a subject worth arguing about ―
Sunday Times
highly engaging ―
Sunday Telegraph
With such a champion as Beard to debunk and popularise, the future of the study of classics is assured ―
Daily Telegraph
sparkling ―
The Lady
so engaging, and at times so very funny — Edith Hall ―
Times
this is the perfect introduction to classical studies, and deserves to become something of a standard work in the future ―
Observer
an irrepressible enthusiast with a refreshing disregard for convention ―
FT
Book Description
Now in paperback, Mary Beard takes us on an exhilarating journey through the extraordinary riches of the classical heritage, and why it still matters.
About the Author
Mary Beard is one of the most original and best-known classicists working today. She is Professor of Classics at Newnham College, Cambridge, and the Classics editor of the TLS. She is a fellow of the British Academy and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Her books include the Wolfson Prize-winning Pompeii: The Life of a Roman Town (2008) and the best-selling SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome (2015). Her popular TLS blog has been collected in the books It’s a Don’s Life and All in a Don’s Day. Her latest book is Women & Power: A Manifesto (2017).
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