Skeptical history …

… The University Bookman: We’re in This Together. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

In some connections, Beard is limited—though anybody would be; reading in a cultural vacuum chamber would kill any historian. Heinously violating multicultural evenhandedness myself, I have to note that Beard’s viewpoint (she is a Cambridge professor) is post-imperial and post-religious—good for skepticism, but bad for a full appreciation of what made Roman culture quite cheery and vigorous despite the preponderance of poverty (directly in the face of stunning wealth), filth, disease, toil, noise, corruption, and oppression that she outlines.

In order to get at the past it would seem imperative to leave behind as many of the present’s fads fancies as possible.