An adroit savaging

Peter Green’s review of David Wills, The Mirror of Antiquity: 20th Century British Travellers in Greece (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2007), in the Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2008.10.08 is absolutely a must read. I haven’t enjoyed a review so much in a long time. The buggy whip is in the hand of a master.

Peter Green, Dougherty Centennial Professor Emeritus of Classics in the University of Texas at Austin and Adjunct Professor in the Department of Classics at the University of Iowa [† 2024 as noted here], is the sharp-witted and exceedingly urbane author of, among other things, the magnificent Alexander to Actium: The Historical Evolution of the Hellenistic Age (University of California Press, 1990/1993). The review reminded me to place an order for Green’s From Ikaria to the Stars: Classical Mythification Ancient and Modern (University of Texas Press, 2004), a collection of his articles. From the latter book’s Amazon page, Professor Alan Boegehold is quoted as saying of this collection, “Green presents to historians, philosophers, and students of literature generally the reflections of a robust, generous, wonderfully learned, opinionated, personally involved, unfailingly interesting monitor of western civilization past and present.” He is certainly correct in his characterization of Green; such flattery is entirely earned.