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The Classical Tradition (Harvard University Press Reference Library)
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About The Classical Tradition
Product Description How do we get from the polis to the police? Or from Odysseus’ sirens to an ambulance’s? The legacy of ancient Greece and Rome has been imitated, resisted, misunderstood, and reworked by every culture that followed. In this volume, some five hundred articles by a wide range of scholars investigate the afterlife of this rich heritage in the fields of literature, philosophy, art, architecture, history, politics, religion, and science. Arranged alphabetically from Academy to Zoology, the essays—designed and written to serve scholars, students, and the general reader alike—show how the Classical tradition has shaped human endeavors from art to government, mathematics to medicine, drama to urban planning, legal theory to popular culture. At once authoritative and accessible, learned and entertaining, comprehensive and surprising, and accompanied by an extensive selection of illustrations, this guide illuminates the vitality of the Classical tradition that still surrounds us today. From Booklist Use of the adjective classical to modify, for example, architecture, dance, or education often denotes some form, style, type, or idea that is archetypal, foundational, ideal, or otherwise worthy of emulation, save by those who find the tradition limiting and wish to break out of the mold. Western cultures have often taken these classical forms from the civilizations of ancient Greece and Rome. Rather than simply defining some of these, this new reference work �aims to provide a reliable and wide-ranging guide to the reception of Graeco-Roman antiquity in all its dimensions in later cultures.� Two examples illustrate this aim quite nicely. The entry for Portico begins with a definition of the Roman original and follows its use in architecture over the centuries. It also describes its lasting legacy as a street-side arcade that finds expression in the front porches of houses today. Gesture and dance describes how ballet grew out of Renaissance-era textual examinations of ancient dramatists and the subsequent desire to combine regulation of physical expression and an ideal vision of the body. These entries are joined by some 500 others, written by an international team of scholars and ranging in subject from Architecture to Zoology, Atlantis to Sparta, and Aeneas to Xenophon. The Classical Tradition demonstrates that vestiges of ancient Greece and Rome are to be found throughout Western societies and often where they might least be expected. The emphasis on the reception history of this rich heritage, showing how generations have glorified, vilified, misunderstood, and retooled this inheritance for their own purposes, makes it a unique resource and sets it apart from such reference standards as the Oxford Classical Dictionary (2003). Recommended for academic and large public libraries. --Christopher McConnell Review Now here is a fabulous book--and a bargain to boot. Harvard has produced this gigantic volume, packed with color plates and essays by some of the greatest scholars alive, for the price of a couple of hardback thrillers. Better still, while The Classical Tradition may look like a work of reference, it's actually one of the best bedside books you could ask for. I know because I've been browsing around in it with immense pleasure...Certainly anyone even mildly interested in the Western cultural heritage will find The Classical Tradition a necessary purchase...[It] shows us how deeply the stories, iconic figures and ideas of antiquity succor our imaginations and still suffuse the world we live in. (Michael Dirda Washington Post 2010-10-14) Make no mistake, The Classical Tradition is exceedingly delightful...An esoteric tool for the scholar on the face of it, The Classical Tradition turns out to be a guide for living here, now, in the 21st century as we find it. (Morgan Meis The Smart Set 2010-11-05) A heady, hefty new single-volume reference...This is a browser's paradise...While Greece and Rome are no longer the fou
