Book cover of Love, Sex and Tragedy: Why Classics Matter

Book description

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…

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1 author picked Love, Sex and Tragedy as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Simon Goldhill powerfully demonstrates why we remain indebted to the ancient world in so many ways. It is not just that classical columns often decorate our buildings or that classical legends inspire our films and books, our whole life still bears the cultural and psychological imprint of ancient Greece and Rome. Our current obsession with gyms, for example, stems from the Greek passion for exercising in public (and they did so naked). Gymnasium is in origin a Greek word. While Greeks and Romans took different views from us on numerous things, from romantic love to slavery, the issues they first…

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