Confronting the Classics: Traditions, Adventures and Innovations

Mary Beard is one of the world's best-known classicists - a brilliantacademic, with a rare gift for communicating with a wide audience boththough her TV presenting and her books.

In a series of sparklingessays, she explores our rich classical heritage - from Greek drama toRoman jokes, introducing some larger-than-life characters of classicalhistory, such as Alexander the Great, Nero and Boudicca. She invites youinto the places where Greeks and Romans lived and died, from the palaceat Knossos to Cleopatra's Alexandria - and reveals the often hiddenworld of slaves. She takes a fresh look at both scholarly controversiesand popular interpretations of the ancient world, from The Golden Bough to Asterix.

The fruit of over thirty years in the world of classical scholarship, Confronting the Classics captures the world of antiquity and its modern significance with wit, verve and scholarly expertise.