An Intelligent Person's Guide to Classics

by Peter V. Jones

Peter Jones argues in this book that it is the power, scope and intrinsic fascination of their ideas that makes the Greeks and Romans so important and influential. For over 2,000 years these ideas, many formulated by them (as far as we can tell) for the first time, have gripped western imagination and been instrumental in the way we think about the world. The book gives a succinct account of what is meant by the term 'Classics' and how knowledge of the Greeks and the Romans has been transmitted to us today, before launching out onto a wide-ranging selection of topics spanning the millennia which give some indication of the astonishing intellectual, political and literary achievements of the classical world. The book ends with a brief scream at those responsible for the education of our young today.

Genres: Nonfiction, Classics

224 pages, Hardcover

First published October 28, 1999

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Peter Jones (sometimes credited as Peter V. Jones) is a former lecturer in Classics at the University of Newcastle Upon Tyne, a writer and journalist. Jones has regularly written on Classics for major newspapers, and was awarded the MBE in 1983. He is a Cambridge graduate.

Jones' popular work has been focused on introducing new generations to Ancient Rome and Greece, from newspaper columns to crossword collections, popular non-fiction, and charitable organisations devoted to helping keep Classics subjects in schools.

Reviews

[Yeemay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Despite the rather pompous sounding title I was moved to reading this having heard Peter Jones recently talk on The Iliad. He was erudite, witty, entertaining and engaging. And this book did not disappoint. It covered a vast area of knowledge around the classics: language, literature, architecture, politics, philosophy, the organisation and execution of power. Endlessly fascinating. I finished it wanting to read Paradise Lost again, visit Florence again, improve my Greek and read more Greek texts (strangely enough not Latin texts though!).

[T · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s a wonderful overview of many things one can learn from the classics. Of course it’s a selection and with it come big absences, but I could not recommend this book enough to anyone interested in the subject matter. (I’m not sure how it would read without any prior knowledge. Part of what made it fun to read was that many sections expanded upon things I’d read before)

[Al · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good overview of the field. When I decided to major in Classics, I had no idea that the field encompassed Latin, Greek, architecture, philosophy, history, numismatics, etc. This book provides a good general overview, and plenty of further reading. A Classics degree provides a good start point for many different fields, and Classics majors are grammar experts ;)

[Russell James · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jones is arguably the liveliest and clearest writer in this crowded field. He is opinionated and likes a joke - and who would quarrel with that? (Some classics masters, that's who.) Here he takes us through the usually dry terrain of Greek and Latin history and the legacy of classic thinkers.

[Johanne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good run through the classics and their contemporary relevance. Peter Jones has an accessible and engaging style