Rating: 
Summary: Calling All Amateurs
Review: 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:
Summary: A shake-up for university education and "modern" thought
Review: 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: 
Summary: Back to the roots
Review: This book is a bliss. Even for someone from Europe where classical education is still much more widespread than in the U.S., this is great reading, Excellently researched and full of wit. One can hardly believe the teaching standards at some state colleges and... no, there is no college/university in Europe where you can get a credit for Star Wars or Horseriding. Heavens save Europe (and the U.S. too) from overly politically correct approach to just everything. Not all cultures are simply the same, and men and women are different. For those who believe that this reviewer is a European male chauvinist: he speaks and reads in six languages including Japanese, has travelled the world, but thinks is those terms for which the Greeks have laid base: freedom of expression, noblesse oblige and clear differentiation between the good and the evil.
Rating:
Summary: Fresh Thinking at Last
Review: This book is excellent. Strong, with fresh views on old subjects. It offers good ammunition in the confusion of modern globalization trends, a globalization that, interestingly enough, drifts away from true global values, such as the humanism found in the classics... Good reading for the thinker, for the critical examiner of modern trends, of the new world order trends... The classics offer a strong antidote to confusion and manipulation. They give us the tools for strong and clear thinking. They are part of our identity, of the best that western civilization has to offer... Also, the book offers lists on classic books to read, very helpful. Excellent for the perceiving minds of our times...
Rating:
Summary: Both dispiriting and Inspiring
Review: This is a great book in many ways. What the authors report about the classics can in many ways be applied more broadly to a university education in general. The culture of the tenured professor, the publish or perish mentality of the modern university, all of these contribute to the erosion of quality in our colleges.
The authors do a good job of pointing out the nonsense that is published in the name of scholarship.
They are right in that it probably is too late to save Classics at the university level, but perhaps their advice will yield a more demotic embrace of Greek ideas.
Rating:
Summary: Both dispiriting and Inspiring
Review: This is a great book in many ways. What the authors report about the classics can in many ways be applied more broadly to a university education in general. The cultured of the tenured professor, the publish or perish mentality of the modern university, all of these contribute to the erosion of quality in our colleges.
The authors do a good job of pointing out the nonsense that is published in the name of scholarship.
They are right in that it probably is too late to save Classics at the university level, but perhaps their advice will yield a more demotic embrace of Greek ideas.
Rating:
Summary: An Excellent Book
Review: This is an excellent book. It shows how a classical education is the only education for a truly educated person, but many modern professors have declared war upon this type of education, instead replacing it with political correctness and multiculturalism. Matthew Arnold once said that "a truly educated man will know Latin." Let's hope that this norm survives and is not destroyed by these ideological PC professors.
Rating:
Summary: An Excellent Book
Review: This is an excellent book. It shows how a classical education is the only education for a truly educated person, but many modern professors have declared war upon this type of education, instead replacing it with political correctness and multiculturalism. Matthew Arnold once said that "a truly educated man will know Latin." Let's hope that this norm survives and is not destroyed by these ideological PC professors.
Rating:
Summary: The most important thing I have read in the last decade.
Review: This should be required reading for all. A masterful summation for those who have read the classic primary works and an absolute necessity for those who have not. A most timely book with an extraordinary amount of wisdom. I savored each sentence.
Rating:
Summary: A sustained argument on university education
Review: Two distinguished classicists address three core issues in university-level education today. The first is the role of the classics in contemporary academic life. The other two issues involve us all. In the first, Hanson and Heath offer a sustained argument on the problem of post-modernism. They explore the issues of historical research and reasoned evidence in contrast with interpretive assertion and critical theory. They also consider the relationship between research and teaching. This issue heads the agenda of the formerly independent schools of art and design that are now developing university-level programs. Hanson and Heath assert that university education requires reverence for truth, a concept of the good life, a model of appropriate education, and an understanding of how education gives rise to excellence in societies and individuals. These arguments demand the attention of everyone who teaches at university. The authors call for a rebirth of the concrete Greek values of public discourse and democracy, even though they neglect the equally vital abstract virtues of theoretical inquiry and scientific speculation. This is a sustained argument from reasoned evidence. A serious philosophy of education requires understanding how and why we agree -- or disagree -- with the authors on any given point. Book review published in Design Research News, Volume 6, Number 7, July 2001 ISSN 1473-3862.
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