Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Calling All Amateurs
The core of WKH? (as Hanson and Heath charmingly call their own book) is a savage indictment of university Classicists. The answer to the question "who killed Homer and why?" is classicists, and for filthy lucre. For money, career, fame and professional advancement, classicists have betrayed the Greeks by preferring academic heights to actual teaching, by turning Classical Greece into one more subject for multiculturalist, postmodernist, queer theorist, what-have-you studies, by ignoring the greatness and uniqueness of Greek culture and not caring what the Greeks actually have to say. The professors don't live like Greeks, they fail to match word and deed. So disinterested grad students (with their eyes firmly on the professorial heights) do all the actual teaching, and the students aren't coming anymore.And Hanson and Heath confess that they don't believe that university Classics can be saved. (Incidentally, the authors make it pretty clear that taking the Greeks seriously is antithetical -- and may be a good antidote -- to nonsensical multiculturalism. There is truth, there is virtue, and all things are not equal.) Interestingly, this core is sandwiched between introductory chapters which set out the unique importance of the Greeks and also the history of Classical Studies, emphasizing the sometimes revolutionary contributions of amateur classicists and a closing chapter giving an introductory syllabus and commentary to aspiring amateur classicists, ten books by Greeks and ten books about Greeks. Hanson and Heath say they hope for another Homer, but they seem to be sending out a homing beacon to another Schliemann, Parry or Ventris. Good for them. Their devastating scorched earth criticism and their fluent, accessible writing make this book a fun read as well as a compelling one.
Rating: - A shake-up for university education and "modern" thought
This an excellently researched and written book which keeps the reader's interest strong from the beginning to the end. I come from an Economics background with a strong amateur interest in ancient greek history and mythology, but after reading this book my experience during the six years of studies in Canadian and American Universities came back to me to remind me of the problems and challenges facing higher academic education, which I had sensed back then(early 80's). I feel there is a common pathology in all academia in the west and the lack of proper classical training, from the early years, may account for that. The book offers an excellent account of the contribution of greek wisdom to western culture, and for modern Greeks (it has already been translated in modern Greek)it is also useful to see that they are not the only inheritors of ancient Greece, and rightly so, language and customs apart. In addition, the book answers accurately to the recent resurgence of the supposedly "afro-asiatic" roots of classical civilisation and gives the right perspective to the whole debate. This book should form a basis for a reexamination of university education and all education for that matter. By stressing our common western heritage, feeling proud of it, we can interact more fruitfully with the other traditions in the world. Cultural mix-ups do not offer solutions to problems facing the world today. The forces of ignorance, superstition and the irrational loom large. The world has benefited by the Greek spirit and should not discard it too easily, in view on new "millennia" promising ideas. The books has a very good section on recommended readings in ancient greek wisdom at the end.
Rating: - Important Wake-up call!
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Itawoke in me a new desire to reclaim a classical education (which I am now doing by learning Ancient Greek!). It is important in today's era of "multiculturalism" to recognize that not all cultures are created equal. The Greco-Roman tradition gave us the foundation for our own form of a Democratic Republic. While it is the PC fashion now to criticize the Greeks for their treatment of women and slaves let us not forget that many countries/cultures still engage in slavery (West Africa), or brutal treatment of women (Islamic). As so elegantly pointed out, the *only* culture which took major steps to eradicate these inequities were the Western ones and most specifically the United States. Even in Ancient Greece, many voices (Aristophanes, Euripides) can be read as speaking out against social injustice. If we let the classics die in our colleges and universities upon the sacrificial altar of feminism, multiculturalism, or political correctness, we will have lost part of the American soul and more importantly - our intellectual heritage! This book is a clarion call to what is so wrong in academia today and to the fact that we had best wake up before it is too late! By the way - I am a liberal, but not a radical leftist!
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