Love, Sex and Tragedy : Why Classics Matters - Softcover

Goldhill, Simon

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0719555450 ISBN 13: 9780719555459

Publisher: John Murray, 2005

Synopsis

Simon Goldhill examines the most basic areas of our lives today, from marriage and sex to politics and entertainment. Whether we are falling in love or waging wars in the name of democracy, he reveals how Classical ideas continue to shape our behaviour and our attitudes in crucial ways. Full of surprising facts and startling stories, it will appeal to anyone interested in history and its influence on our lives. It is as wide-ranging as it is readable, with a brilliant cast of characters. Few books could bring together Freud, Plato, Queen Victoria, Romeo and Juliet, George W. Bush and Charles Atlas in this way. Inspiring, thought provoking and illuminating, LOVE, SEX & TRAGEDY shows again and again how and why the Romans and Greeks still matter.

About this title

About the Author:

Simon Goldhill is Professor of Greek at the University of Cambridge. His books include Reading Greek Tragedy, now in its eighth edition. He publishes regularly in the TLS and the London Review of Books, and is in great demand as a lecturer on Classics the world over.

Review:

'Confident, intelligent and assertive! he draws many telling lessons' -- Oliver Taplin, Guardian Weekly 20040730 'Simon Goldhill reminds us in Love, Sex & Tragedy of how Greek representations of the body beautiful, architecture and ideas of philosophy and democracy still influence us today.' -- New Scientist 20040807 'Love, Sex and Tragedy has the popular intellectual grace of de Botton's How Proust Can Change Your Life, but it is more than clever and everywhere avoids being tongue-in-cheek. ... I wish more classicists would write as invitingly and honestly as Goldhill does ... The world would be a better place.' -- Times Higher Education Supplement 20040924 'Goldhill is the kind of classics master whose lessons you wouldn't want to skip' -- Independent on Sunday 20040924 'This book is thoroughly enjoyable and refreshing' -- History Today 20041201 'In this accessible, non-academic, yet highly informative work Goldhill weaves expertly through a whole host of contemporary phobias and nightmares, pleasures and dreams to demonstrate the social, political and personal debts we owe to the Greeks' -- Scotsman 20040515 'Enjoyable and lively' -- TLS 20040625 'This book is a call-to-arms in the face of a rapidly disintegrating culture.' -- Good Book Guide 20050301 'This is a good book.' -- Focus 20050501 'Passionate, witty and broad-ranging ... Goldhill skilfully overturns and amends our existing beliefs and is superb when discussing the origins of democracy, the importance of tragedy and, inevitably, sex' -- Observer 'Goldhill does for declensions what Alain de Botton did for Descartes' -- Tatler 'Terrifically good ... As this brilliant book demonstrates, a familiarity with the ancient world is about much more than a life in ruins' -- Independent 'It's great, and great fun ... the kind of book you find yourself reading out to your other half as you go along ... A sparkling, erudite and amusing remedy for our collective historical amnesia' -- ZADIE SMITH '[A] wonderful biography' -- Spectator 20041113 'His sharp essays on significant sites (from the stage to the arena) excite, enlighten and temper "relavance" with "otherness"' -- Independent 20050218 'An exhilaratingly intelligent exercise in evangelism' -- Guardian 20050219 'In a breezy, user-friendly tone Goldhill tells us why classics matter.' Iain Finlayson -- The Times 20050312

About this edition

• Publisher: John Murray
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0719555450
• ISBN 13: 9780719555459
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 352