Book cover of Pity Transformed

Book description

"Pity Transformed" is an examination of how pity was imagined and expressed in classical antiquity. It pays particular attention to the ways in which the pity of the Greeks and Romans differed from modern ideas. Among the topics investigated in this study are the appeal to pity in courts of…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Pity Transformed as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

This book unlocked secrets for me. I was searching for a way of making sense of my own historical work on sympathy in the nineteenth century when I turned to Konstan’s masterpiece on pity in the ancient world, in all its varieties and political forms.

The book could not have been further in time from my own focus, but Konstan’s methods, combined with his narrative sharpness, showed me the way. I read this book, and suddenly, I knew what to do.

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December on 5C4 by Adam Strassberg,

Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!

On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…

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