Confronting the Classics

With such a champion as Beard to debunk and popularise, the future of the study of classics is assured * Daily Telegraph *She’s pulled off that rare trick of becoming a don with a high media profile who hasn’t sold out, who is absolutely respected by the academy for her scholarship … what she says is always powerful and interesting * Guardian *witty, erudite collection…To Beard, the classical past is alive and kicking - and she has the great gift of being able to show just why classics is still a subject worth arguing about * Sunday Times *an irrepressible enthusiast with a refreshing disregard for convention * FT *She stands in the great tradition of myth-puncturing Latin classicists * New York Review of Books *Beard is the best…communicator of Classics we have * Independent on Sunday *highly engaging * Sunday Telegraph *sparkling * The Lady *so engaging, and at times so very funny – Edith Hall * Times *this is the perfect introduction to classical studies, and deserves to become something of a standard work in the future * Observer *

Mary Beard is a professor of classics at Newnham College, Cambridge, and the classics editor of the TLS. She has world-wide academic acclaim. Her previous books include the bestselling, Wolfson Prize-winning Pompeii, The Roman Triumph, The Parthenon and Confronting the Classics. Her blog has been collected in the books It’s a Don’s Life and All in a Don’s Day. She was in the 2014 Top 10 Prospect list of the most influential thinkers in the world.