Thursday, October 27, 2016

This is delightful …

… The University Bookman: Airing Rome’s Dirty Laundry. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)



I love that Juster not only praises the book under review, but takes the time to rebut another review of the book, and in the process manages to demonstrate how provincial the American academy has become. Plenty to quote from in the review, but you should read all of it. Here's just one sample:
The virtues of Catullus’ Bedspread led to glowing reviews in the major papers and journals of the United Kingdom, where HarperCollins first released it. As one might regrettably expect, the book’s reception by academics in the United States has been rockier. The nastiest of the American reviews by far is an exercise in what millennials call “mansplaining” (a man explaining something to a woman in a patronizing fashion). This review, by Bard College classics professor James Romm, appeared electronically in the normally politically correct journal, The New Republic.

1 comment:

  1. Thanks for the link. I checked this out from the library yesterday on a whim, and it's nice to see such a glowing review.

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