Intelligent and assertive. Goldhill's idea is candidly expressed on page 156: "He [T.S. Eliot] knew how much classics matters to understanding Western tradition."

certain parts of this book are so, so fascinating. i especially enjoyed the sections about romance, sex, and democracy

it was difficult to get through however because there was so much fluff. he says the same thing a million times in a row. it read like a persuasive essay that was trying to get the word count up. could have been cut down 50%

An excellent essay for all Europeans who want to really know who we are, what we bealive or not, helps you think from where you start until your destination.

I took a few breaks reading this book, which I inherited from my grandmother. This is definitely a book for non-classicists who want to learn more about the use of classics in the modern world. I found parts of the book fun and useful, and other parts a little boring. I would recommend for a newcomer interested in the effect of the ancient Mediterranean world on the modern western world.

how does our history influence our present? surprise: in many ways and quite extensively!

Although Goldhill is not a remarkable stylist, he nonetheless accomplishes the feat of showing how ancient Greek culture impacts contemporary culture in a few hundred pages.

Packed with historical facts and insightful connections, this book is widely recommendable for its presentation of high subject matter in easily readable prose.

als ik het woord fallus nog één keer zie he.

Bilgilendirici bir kitap olmuş..Atina dan başlayıp günümüze kadar ki gündelik yaşamdaki yaşam tarzlarını ve o zaman ki değerlerini anlatmış..Seks'ten Felsefe'ye,Demokrasi'den Romalılara,Gladyatörlerden savaşlara kadar enine boyuna ele almış tarihi..İdeal kadın ve erkek tarifleri detaylı şekilde yapılmış ve ilginç olan şey ise;Antik Yunanlılardaki tarif bugün dahi geçerliliğini hala koruyor modern dünyada.Kadın için; yumuşak ve gevşek,tüysüz ve cilveli.Her nekadar "demokrasi"nin doğduğu topraklar isede Kadın'a hiçbir hak verilmemiştir.

Platon ve Aristotales'in homoseksüelliğin aileye zarar verdiğini gösterdiğini ve bunu desteklemenin devletin işi olmadığını iddia etmişlerdir..
"Erkeklerin,kendlerine "Atina Vatandaşı" denmesinden gurur duyarken,kadınlar genellikle "Attica Kadını"olarak adlandırılır..Atina ismine dahi sahip değildiler..
Yunan aşkı'nı tanımlamak-erkeğin erkeğeduyduğu arzu,bunun gelenekleri ve uygulamaları...
Nietzche'nin de önceden sorduğu gibi,modern dünyadaki en şiddetli ve yıkıcı çatışmalar "fikirler arasındaki savaşlardır"
...yasalar,vatandaşın anası ve babasıdır..

"Romalılar döneminde,erkeğe ve kadına tecavüz bir nevi cezalandırma biçimi olarak algılanıyordu..
"Ereksiyon görmüş bir penis hiç şüphesiz Yunanlılarda bir bereket sembolü görülebilir....Penis sembol olarak kamu anıtları yapmak için kullanılırdı,kapı girişlerine ve kavşaklara konulurdu,kapı zili ve lamba olarak kullanılırdı antik çağda..Eros'un hernekadar "aşk tanrı"sı olanarak biliniyorsada aslında "arzu tanrı"sıymış..
Cicero"Eğer nereden geldiğinizi bilmiyorsanız,her zaman bir çocuk olarak kalacaksınız"
Seneca; "eşle bir aşık gibi sevişmek,zina kadar iğrençtir"

Interesting take on things. I love the ancient world for itself so linking the modern to the ancient isn't my cup of tea per se. But it was worth the read.

What I liked about Simon Goldhill’s Love, Sex & Tragedy was that he (mostly) avoids sounding like a curmudgeonly stick-in-the-mud who can’t handle the loss of the classical curriculum in education and the knowledge of Western civilization’s origins. He laments it not because he wants to hear people quoting Homer from memory (in the original Greek) or see glowing comparisons of politicians to Cincinnatus but because he sees little evidence that what’s replaced it is tackling the same issues in as deep a manner. He doesn’t see any counterparts today to Homer, Herodotus and Thucydides, or to Sophocles and Euripides, among others. And this dumbing down of our public discourse infects all aspects of culture – politics, entertainment, social relationships, literature, the arts, etc.

Why study the classics?

I’m going to be lazy and simply quote the author from the last pages of the book, where he concludes:

For thinking hard about the past reveals the buried life of the present, its potential for change, for being different. Looking back critically at where we come from is a revelatory education about the present.

The simplest point that emerges from looking back at how the myths of Greece and Rome have functioned in the history of European culture is this: the past matters. It matters because in psychological, social, intellectual, artistic and political terms the past is formative of the present. It is the person’s or culture’s deep grounding. It matters how the past is understood or told. Stories change lives. They make foundations, they build hopes and they can kill. A self-aware appreciation of the past requires reflecting on the myths and the histories, the story-telling and the critical analysis, which makes sense of the past – and thus the present....

Understanding the past also requires that we understand how previous generations thought of the past, were stimulated and inspired by it, rebelled against it, denied it. Classical antiquity has constantly been reinvented as the privileged model of the past, and it has been thus a force for comprehending – and changing – the present....

If we do not recognize how classical antiquity furnished the imagination, stimulated and structured thought and acted as a banner of artistic and political revolution, our view of our own cultural tradition will be necessarily distorted. (pp. 319-20)

Aside from the general conclusion above, I found several of the specifics the author focuses on interesting. One in particular stood out because of personal interests, and I’ll mention it here so you can get an idea of the issues Goldhill deals with. He spends a great deal of time (two chapters – 26 pages) discussing the Oedipus myth (as transmitted by Sophocles; there were other versions) and how it became and remains a profound analysis of the human condition, helped by Freud making it the basis for his psychology.

Oedipus is the archetypal hero figure trying to discover where he comes from: “Oedipus’ search for himself, his journey to discover where he comes from, is the paradigmatic example of how we must look back for self-knowledge, but also of how disturbing and painful that necessary process can be” (p. 298) and “Most shocking is the play’s insistent and disturbing claim that is it exactly at the moment you think you know where you come from and who you are that you are most open to a tragedy of self-deception” (p. 306). Goldhill sees Oedipus as particularly important in the 21st century when Western civilization struggles ever more desperately to know and to control but only seems to discover ever more uncertainty and ever less control.

I would recommend the book. Even if you don’t agree with the author’s conclusions in parts of the book, it’s still an interesting look at the influence Greece and Rome had and continues to have over our lives.

The Idea that Western Culture has a continuity tracing back to the ancient world is seriously challenged by reading the classics. Ideas of the individual, sexual mores and common sense of the ancient Greeks and Romans seem utterly alien to the modern Post-Christian Westerner. Yet we supposedly trace our cultures origins to such people. I've always had an interest in the ancients but this book only increased my curiousity.

After reading his Reading Greek Tragedy, I was surprised by how conversational this book felt. Goldhill covers a good group of topics and works hard to trace them from ancient to modern. My only criticism is that there was any striking insight that seemed new or novel.