DE JAEGHERE Michel.
The Cabinet of Antiques. The Origins of Contemporary Democracy.
The Beautiful Letters
Regular price
€21,00
| N° d'inventaire | 25683 |
| Format | 12.5 x 19 |
| Détails | 570 p., paperback |
| Publication | Paris, 2022 |
| Etat | Nine |
| ISBN | 9782251450544 |
"Such is the dark grandeur now proposed to the contemporary historian: to devote his efforts to discrediting ancient authors by showing to what extent they had been dependent on their blindness; to highlight the gaps, the myopia, the extravagance of their judgments; to flush out class prejudices and gender stereotypes; to draw up the inventory, the genealogy of their successive reinterpretations by each generation.
To hold their works, on the other hand, as a reservoir of examples, models, and useful situations to guide our thinking, as Plutarch recommended, to even consider them as masterpieces of “unalterable relevance,” because they “know how to express what is human in man,” would be to remain on the surface of things, “in the ether of classical culture.” To flatter oneself that we are continuing a dialogue with these old dead men that our differences and our distance relegate to the rank of vain dream would be naive, amateurish, and presumptuous.
I wrote this book because I think the exact opposite."
Repudiating all simplifying anachronisms, but also refusing to consider the legacy of Antiquity as a dead, infertile beauty, Michel De Jaeghere mobilizes his training as a historian of ideas, his long association with ancient authors, and his familiarity with contemporary politics to confront a formidable question: are the Ancients, in politics, still good advisors?
To hold their works, on the other hand, as a reservoir of examples, models, and useful situations to guide our thinking, as Plutarch recommended, to even consider them as masterpieces of “unalterable relevance,” because they “know how to express what is human in man,” would be to remain on the surface of things, “in the ether of classical culture.” To flatter oneself that we are continuing a dialogue with these old dead men that our differences and our distance relegate to the rank of vain dream would be naive, amateurish, and presumptuous.
I wrote this book because I think the exact opposite."
Repudiating all simplifying anachronisms, but also refusing to consider the legacy of Antiquity as a dead, infertile beauty, Michel De Jaeghere mobilizes his training as a historian of ideas, his long association with ancient authors, and his familiarity with contemporary politics to confront a formidable question: are the Ancients, in politics, still good advisors?
To hold their works, on the other hand, as a reservoir of examples, models, and useful situations to guide our thinking, as Plutarch recommended, to even consider them as masterpieces of “unalterable relevance,” because they “know how to express what is human in man,” would be to remain on the surface of things, “in the ether of classical culture.” To flatter oneself that we are continuing a dialogue with these old dead men that our differences and our distance relegate to the rank of vain dream would be naive, amateurish, and presumptuous.
I wrote this book because I think the exact opposite."
Repudiating all simplifying anachronisms, but also refusing to consider the legacy of Antiquity as a dead, infertile beauty, Michel De Jaeghere mobilizes his training as a historian of ideas, his long association with ancient authors, and his familiarity with contemporary politics to confront a formidable question: are the Ancients, in politics, still good advisors?