Long-time scholar and classicist Knox (coeditor, The Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces) offers three essays in defense of the ancient Greeks against their current and many maligners in the camps of the new academia. ``[The] revisionist case lacks cogency,'' declares Knox, arguing simply that the role of the ancients ``in the history of the West has always been innovative, sometimes indeed subversive, even revolutionary.'' As for the great fight over the ``canon,'' Knox refuses to be ruffled or alarmed, merely pointing out—perhaps optimistically—that if the classics are exchanged for other books, ``the new material will have to compete with the old, and if it is not up to the same high level it will sooner or later be rejected with disdain by the students themselves.'' Whether Knox sufficiently buttresses his arguments here to win the day in some imaginary and strenuously heated debate may not matter very much; his voice offers the high pleasures of enormous learnedness, great common sense, and simple clarity as he speaks (the essays all had their origins as talks) about the original meaning of the liberal arts, about the psychology and intellectual attitudes of the ancients—not avoiding their blemished views regarding women and slavery—and about the genuine contributions of the sophists, their best and deserved reputations besmirched for all of history by that zealous early promoter of political correctness, Plato.
Pub Date: April 5, 1993
ISBN: 0-393-03492-5
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1993
BOOK REVIEW
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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