A passionate defense particularly notable for its bracing lack of old fogeyism.
“What is the point of the ancient classics?” asks the noted scholar and popularizer.
Someone who taught ancient Greek and Roman culture at Cambridge for 50 years isn’t going to say there is no point, but Beard is quick to assure readers, in the breezy tone familiar from her television work, that she will make her case “without resorting to the tired clichés often used.” She doesn’t necessarily think the classics are “good for you” or impart “timeless truths.” What first sparked her interest was a 4,000-year-old piece of Egyptian bread at the British Museum that a kind curator took out of its case and held at eye level, so that 5-year-old Mary could see it up close; she still recalls the thrill of “an ordinary fragment of everyday life made by, and for, people who were unimaginably distant from me.” That sense of both nearness and distance is a through line in Beard’s short text, based on lectures she gave at the universities of Chicago and Edinburgh. Yes, classical literature still speaks to us of common, human emotions, but the world limned in, for example, the Iliad and the Aeneid is one in which slavery is a given, women have minimal rights, and violence is glorified, she reminds us; those pristine, marble statues praised by 19th-century classicists were originally painted in bright colors, and ancient Greeks and Romans weren’t monolithically white either. The ancients lived in a multicultural world and grappled with issues of free speech, good government, and many others still debated today. As is often the case in academic texts, there’s a lot of “on the one hand, on the other hand” here, but that’s Beard’s point. “Classics teaches you to discuss constructively questions to which there are no right answers,” she argues. “Part of the unashamed mission of humanities education is to celebrate and face up to complexity.”
A passionate defense particularly notable for its bracing lack of old fogeyism.Pub Date: May 20, 2026
ISBN: 9780226834245
Page Count: 184
Publisher: Univ. of Chicago
Review Posted Online: March 23, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2026
An erudite guide to the biblical world.
Revelations from the Old Testament.
“The Bible has no rivals when it comes to the art of omission, of not saying what everyone would like to know,” observes Calasso (1941-2021), the acclaimed Italian publisher, translator, and explorer of myth, gods, and sacred ritual. In this probing inquiry into biblical mysteries, the author meditates on the complexities and contradictions of key events and figures. He examines the “enigmatic nature” of original sin in Genesis, an anomaly occurring in no other creation myth; God’s mandate of circumcision for all Jewish men; and theomorphism in the form of Adam: a man created in the image of the god who made him. Among the individuals Calasso attends to in an abundantly populated volume are Saul, the first king of Israel; the handsome shepherd David, his successor; David’s son Solomon, whose relatively peaceful reign allowed him “to look at the world and study it”; Moses, steeped in “law and vengeance,” who incited the slaughter of firstborn sons; and powerful women, including the Queen of Sheba (“very beautiful and probably a witch”), Jezebel, and the “prophetess” Miriam, Moses’ sister. Raging throughout is Yahweh, a vengeful God who demands unquestioned obedience to his commandments. “Yahweh was a god who wanted to defeat other gods,” Calasso writes. “I am a jealous God,” Yahweh proclaims, “who punishes the children for the sins of their fathers, as far as the third and fourth generations.” Conflicts seemed endless: During the reigns of Saul and David, “war was constant, war without and war within.” Terse exchanges between David and Yahweh were, above all, “military decisions.” David’s 40-year reign was “harrowing and glorious,” marked by recurring battles with the Philistines. Calasso makes palpable schisms and rivalries, persecutions and retributions, holocausts and sacrifices as tribal groups battled one another to form “a single entity”—the people of Israel.
An erudite guide to the biblical world.Pub Date: Nov. 16, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-374-60189-8
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 20, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An authoritative guide leads an illuminating journey into the distant past.
A noted Egyptologist follows the search for burial sites.
Former director of the Egypt Exploration Society and president of the International Association of Egyptologists, Naunton has presented his research in several TV documentaries, most recently King Tut’s Tomb: The Hidden Chamber (2016). He makes his book debut with an insightful, informative, and beautifully illustrated overview of archaeologists’ quests to find the tombs of some of the most famous individuals of the ancient world—Imhotep, Nefertiti, Cleopatra, and the Macedonian leader Alexander the Great foremost among them—that so far have eluded discovery. Along with chronicling expeditions, Naunton provides colorful biographies of these major historical figures and the world they inhabited. The 19th-century craze for Egyptian antiquities resulted in major finds, but despite two centuries of efforts, much has not been revealed. Of the tombs that have been discovered over the years, the author notes that many have been found empty, plundered by robbers lusting after the considerable wealth buried with the mummified corpse. Some robberies, he speculates, were likely carried out by the same people who buried the deceased or by workers involved in the construction of a new tomb that opened accidentally into the old one. Naunton vividly describes the sumptuous riches of burial sites: In 1939, for example, a team under the direction of French archaeologist Pierre Montet discovered a royal tomb containing a “falcon-headed coffin of solid silver,” a solid gold funerary mask, a scarab of lapis lazuli, and objects made of other precious materials. The following year, his team discovered a mummy “wrapped in almost unimaginable riches,” including 22 bracelets, solid gold toe and finger rings, and jeweled weapons, amulets, and canes. While it seems mysterious that the tombs of famous individuals should remain hidden, Naunton suggests that ancient “waves of rebuilding,” sieges, geological changes, and recent redevelopment have caused sites to be obscured. The tomb of Cleopatra and, perhaps, Marc Antony, for example, may lie buried in the sea, off the coast of Alexandria.
An authoritative guide leads an illuminating journey into the distant past.Pub Date: Nov. 27, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-500-05199-3
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Thames & Hudson
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2018
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