Who Needs Greek? Contests in the Cultural History of Hellenism

by Simon Goldhill

Who Needs Greek? is an interdisciplinary study of arguments on what ancient Greece has meant to western culture from the ancient world to today. The battles between artists and literary critics, historians and journalists, politicians and scholars, are often violent, hilarious, and always passionate. This cutting-edge cultural history ranges from ancient Greece via the Renaissance to modern opera, and treats a central question of culture in a way which will intrigue academics as well as a more general audience.

Genres: History

336 pages, Paperback

First published March 25, 2002

About the author

Simon David Goldhil is Professor in Greek literature and culture and fellow and Director of Studies in Classics at King's College, Cambridge. He was previously Director of Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences, and Humanities (CRASSH) at the University of Cambridge, succeeding Mary Jacobus in October 2011. He is best known for his work on Greek tragedy.
In 2009, he was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2010, he was appointed as the John Harvard Professor in Humanities and Social Sciences at Cambridge, a research position held concurrently with his chair in Greek.
In 2016, he became a fellow of the British Academy. He is a member of the Council of the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the Board of the Consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes, and is President of the European Institutes for Advanced Study (NetIAS).
Goldhill is a well-known lecturer and broadcaster and has appeared on television and radio in England, Australia, the United States and Canada. His books have been translated into ten languages, and he has been profiled by newspapers in Brazil, Australia and the Netherlands.

Reviews

[Miltiadis Michalopoulos · Rating 3 out of 5]

Πολύ εξειδικευμένο και γραμμένο περισσότερο για ακαδημαϊκούς παρά για το ευρύ κοινό...

[Tyler Horton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book, worth a read for anyone involved in the 'Greek' tradition. Goldhill picks a couple of emblematic hot-spots in the history of caring about Greek-ness and Greek language to show the different things that have been at stake in knowing Greek. Gives us a heady dose of self-knowledge in a thoroughly entertaining medium (although his style, interrupted consistently by parentheticals just like this, can be a bit jarring until you get used to it.)