once again not for the pubic eye, another bullshit paper that I have to post on here since the regular internet feels like being an ass.
Alexander Harney
Western Civ
Book Review
Who Killed Homer?
Victor D. Hanson and John Heath
1998 Free Press : New York
“We did not write this book to be cruel to our peers or to air our fields dirty linen.”
This line starts the last paragraph of Victor Hanson and John Heath’s prologue to a book, that if it doesn’t show the field of Classical Studies’ “dirty linen” then they at least point out that it isn’t very clean. The common reader might pick up this book under the false pretenses that it actually has to do with Homer, as this reviewer did, and was sad to find that Homer was meagerly mentioned, and used merely as “spokesperson” of classical studies if you will.
While written in an exciting manner that is not becoming of most critical analysis, readers would find it hard to get through the first 7 pages, as Victor Hanson and John Heath constantly reference obscure numbers, and surveys pointing out the dismal state of the Classics in coming into the 21st Century. Readers are barraged by phrases such as:
“A comparsison of the Professional output of 1992 with that of 1962 reveals the remarkable growth in the industry of Classical scholarship in just the past three decades: twice as many scholars now publish 50 percent more material in twice as many journals.”
This may put off a reader, along with the creeping realization that this was indeed not a book about Homer, those that struggle through the first few pages will be rewarded with witty text. Also past these pages are interesting tid bits regarding the heros of the almost pheonix like cyclical path of Classical Study. The amateur archeologist Heinrich Schliemann, the discoverer of Troy launching the the early 20th century into a frenzied hunger for all things Classical, was actually not quite the brilliant amateur that most history books alude to. Also rewarding readers for their patience are golden nuggets such as this in which they pose a problem to the classical studies in italics with a often humorous and sardonistic answer:
“As for the book reviews in narrow academic journals, any good computer programmer could write the software to turn the now discredited enterprise over to the machines.
After all there are only about seven prerequisites:
1. Use university affiliation as a litmus test, praising or destroying the author in relationship to how much help or harm he can impart, curtsy before a grandee’s tenth monograph (if she still lives), or vilify a nobody enemy
2. Crow about a reference to your own book or whine that the author has forgotten it.”
A reader will also see the dispiriting state of affairs in the Classical department of most universities in the United States. Victor Hanson and John Heath provide some startling examples of classes being dropped and even entire departments in lieu of classes such as “The Theory of Walking” and “Star Trek and the Humanities” that might make a few people fret the further decline of the Classics. This happens to be a subject that I have agreed on, as a rabid lover of Greek mythology, Greek history, and the rest of Greek culture, it is alarming, that my little brother has learned much less of the Greeks than I did at the same age, even with the same teacher.
Western Civ
Book Review
Who Killed Homer?
Victor D. Hanson and John Heath
1998 Free Press : New York
“We did not write this book to be cruel to our peers or to air our fields dirty linen.”
This line starts the last paragraph of Victor Hanson and John Heath’s prologue to a book, that if it doesn’t show the field of Classical Studies’ “dirty linen” then they at least point out that it isn’t very clean. The common reader might pick up this book under the false pretenses that it actually has to do with Homer, as this reviewer did, and was sad to find that Homer was meagerly mentioned, and used merely as “spokesperson” of classical studies if you will.
While written in an exciting manner that is not becoming of most critical analysis, readers would find it hard to get through the first 7 pages, as Victor Hanson and John Heath constantly reference obscure numbers, and surveys pointing out the dismal state of the Classics in coming into the 21st Century. Readers are barraged by phrases such as:
“A comparsison of the Professional output of 1992 with that of 1962 reveals the remarkable growth in the industry of Classical scholarship in just the past three decades: twice as many scholars now publish 50 percent more material in twice as many journals.”
This may put off a reader, along with the creeping realization that this was indeed not a book about Homer, those that struggle through the first few pages will be rewarded with witty text. Also past these pages are interesting tid bits regarding the heros of the almost pheonix like cyclical path of Classical Study. The amateur archeologist Heinrich Schliemann, the discoverer of Troy launching the the early 20th century into a frenzied hunger for all things Classical, was actually not quite the brilliant amateur that most history books alude to. Also rewarding readers for their patience are golden nuggets such as this in which they pose a problem to the classical studies in italics with a often humorous and sardonistic answer:
“As for the book reviews in narrow academic journals, any good computer programmer could write the software to turn the now discredited enterprise over to the machines.
After all there are only about seven prerequisites:
1. Use university affiliation as a litmus test, praising or destroying the author in relationship to how much help or harm he can impart, curtsy before a grandee’s tenth monograph (if she still lives), or vilify a nobody enemy
2. Crow about a reference to your own book or whine that the author has forgotten it.”
A reader will also see the dispiriting state of affairs in the Classical department of most universities in the United States. Victor Hanson and John Heath provide some startling examples of classes being dropped and even entire departments in lieu of classes such as “The Theory of Walking” and “Star Trek and the Humanities” that might make a few people fret the further decline of the Classics. This happens to be a subject that I have agreed on, as a rabid lover of Greek mythology, Greek history, and the rest of Greek culture, it is alarming, that my little brother has learned much less of the Greeks than I did at the same age, even with the same teacher.