It's All Greek to Me: From Achilles' Heel to Pythagoras' Theorem - How Ancient Greece Has Shaped Our World

It's All Greek to Me: From Achilles' Heel to Pythagoras' Theorem - How Ancient Greece Has Shaped Our World

by Charlotte Higgins (Author)

Synopsis

With everything from Achilles' heel to Pythagoras' theorem, from Oedipus and his complex to Margaret Thatcher and Thucydides, this book aims to unlock the richness of the Greek world and show just how profoundly it has informed our own. Consider the way we think: about right and wrong, about the nature of beauty, goodness, and truth. What, in the end, it is to be a human being amid the immensity of the universe. All this, and more, we have learned from the ancient Greeks. They moulded the basic disciplines and genres in which we still organise thought: from poetry to drama, from politics to philosophy and history to medicine. Packed with useful cribs - history timelines; a who's who; a guide to the Greek gods; a map for those who struggle to know their Lemnos from their Lesbos - It's All Greek To Me is a bluffer's guide in one sense, that will give you a helping hand around Greek democracy, the Persian Wars, or the Parthenon. But it is much more than that; it is a book that aims to bring ancient Greece back into the mainstream of life - where it belongs.

$3.34

Save:$9.54 (74%)

Quantity

2 in stock

More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 256
Publisher: Short Books Ltd
Published: 02 Jul 2009

ISBN 10: 1906021597
ISBN 13: 9781906021597

Media Reviews
A highly entertaining bluffer's guide to Greek culture, philosophy and politics. The Sunday Times Higgins delivers digestible precis and peppy plot summaries... the appendices would make fine stocking-fillers in their own right - A love letter to ancient Greece The Telegraph With a marvellous display of knowledgeable enthusiasm and a keen talent for compression, (Higgins) shows just precisely why the Greeks matter The Guardian Higgins takes on classical Greek, covering politics, barbarians, love, epic and ethics, all done with panache and sly wit. Scotland on Sunday It's All Greek to Me is so readable, with a directness and clarity that's enormously engaging. Every generation needs to rediscover the Greeks... Philip Pullman
Author Bio
Charlotte Higgins has worked for the Guardian in various guises for over a decade, latterly as chief arts writer. She was born in Stoke-on-Trent and studied classics at Balliol College, Oxford. She is also the author of Latin Love Lessons: Put a Little Ovid in Your Life (Short Books).