Richard Holloway— As with many useful words, symbol comes from Greek. It means to bring together things that had come apart, the way you might glue the bits of a broken plate together. Then a symbol became an object that stood for or represented something else. It still had the idea of
James C. Scott— I am neither an advocate nor a practitioner of the Paleo diet. I love bread, pasta, butter, and yogurt far too much to forsake them altogether. On the other hand, I have made an effort to understand the dietary consequences of “civilization,” of the food ways typical
Paul A. Rahe— It has always been hard for outsiders to get their minds around classical Lacedaemon, or Sparta as it is more commonly called today. Even in antiquity—as a glance at Xenophon’s Regime of the Lacedaemonians, at Plato’s Republic and Laws, and at Aristotle’s Politics will make clear—the Spartans
As the days grow warmer and the nights grow longer, some are on vacation and many more are wishing they were. The best trips provide opportunities to see new sights, learn about another culture, and return home enriched by the experience. All too often, though, travelers witness the attractions that
Were the ancient Olympic Games anything like the competitions we know today? Neil Faulkner’s A Visitor’s Guide to the Ancient Olympics transports us to the games of 388 B.C., providing a lively guided tour of the ancient Greek Olympics and bringing to life the sights and sounds (and smells) of the competition—which were
Do you believe everything you read history books? If you answered “No,” you are thinking like a historian. A historian’s purpose, as John Lukacs explains in The Future of History, is to find out what “untruths” have been recorded and discover the truth. Currently, that job is becoming harder for
London Olympics 2012: Whose Games Are They Anyway?
Neil Faulkner is the author of A Visitor’s Guide to the Ancient Olympics, now available from Yale University Press. With only 30 days left before the Opening Ceremony of the 2012 Olympic Games, we thought to share some insight into the side of the Games you won’t see, even those as
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