Overview
For generations scholars treated the United States as a unique country whose cultural history could be studied in isolation from world events and traditions. More recently, writers have shown an increased awareness that American society, far from developing in a protected, ahistorical realm, can be understood only as part of a wider civilization. Now E. Christian Kopff offers an even sharper perspective by viewing America squarely within the classical traditions of ancient Greece and Rome. For, as Kopff demonstrates convincingly, a truly informed, nuanced view of American culture must rest upon an appreciation of our debt to the classical past.Synopsis
For generations scholars treated the United States as a unique country whose cultural history could be studied in isolation from world events and traditions. More recently, writers have shown an increased awareness that American society, far from developing in a protected, ahistorical realm, can be understood only as part of a wider civilization. Now E. Christian Kopff offers an even sharper perspective by viewing America squarely within the classical traditions of ancient Greece and Rome. For, as Kopff demonstrates convincingly, a truly informed, nuanced view of American culture must rest upon an appreciation of our debt to the classical past.
Denver Rocky Mountain News
Reading E. Christian Kopff's The Devil Knows Latin is like hearing a series of liberal arts lectures from a brilliant, entertaining and deliberately controversial professor.