Greek Fire - The Influence of Ancient Greece on the Modern World

The original Greek fire was an inflammable substance invented to destroy enemy ships. It was alleged to stay alight even under water, submerged in a contrary environment. In this richly illustrated and intellectually compelling book the noted classical scholar Oliver Taplin uses the term as a metaphor for the astonishing resiliency of ancient Greece, whose influence has persisted for more than two millenia/ Devoting individual chapters to such subjects as tragedy, philosophy, science, myth, politics, sex and warfare, Dr Taplin explores the ways in which the modern world has been inspired by, reacted against, imitated, transformed, recycled, subverted and received Greek culture. In so doing, he demonstrates why a new and fluid view of the Greek ideal - something quite different from that which the Renaissance artists or Victorian builders imagined - is surfacing today and what that phenomenon might mean as we approach the 21st century. A companion to the British TV series of the same name...