Vote for Caesar: How the Ancient Greeks and Romans Solved the Problems of Today
Author(s): Peter Jones
The expansion of the congestion charge zone, prices going up on the Underground, bendy buses - all ideas brought about to try to make the traffic situation in our capital city run more smoothly. Surely there must be a better way? In fact there is. In Roman times, when the streets were even more crowded, Caesar decreed that all vehicles (except those involved in building work) were banned from the City, while Nero took advantage of a major fire to broaden the streets to improve access. Whatever the problem, from the leader whose deputy wants to replace him to the question of how to make democracy really work, you can guarantee that our Classical forebears faced the same situation and came up with some far more effective solutions than our current politicians. In this enthralling, informative and hugely entertaining book, Peter Jones, one of the UK's leading Classicists, highlights just how much we have to learn from the past and how things really were once so much better.
Product Information
A fascinating book that shows how the problems of today were dealt with 2,000 years ago Peter Jones is the long-standing author of the 'Ancient & Modern' column in the Spectator, which provides useful tips on how we can always learn from the Ancient Romans and Greeks Increasing interest in Latin and matters Classical, as shown by the success of Amo, Amas, Amat which sold almost 70,000 copies Perfect gift book for the Grumpy Old generation, who finally get the proof that things really were better in the old days 'As a comprehensive, robust and intelligent guide to the practices of the Greeks and Romans, this is second to none' Literary Review 'A wonderful book' R4 Today Programme 'Crisply, cleverly conjoined, Jones's subjects range from Byzantine intrigue and Cicero to tyrants who poured molten lead down the throats of the treasonous. This book follows a worthy tradition; the Alexandrian libraries, the House of Wisdom in Baghdad and the Sicilian Court all commissioned collections of 'ancient world' highlights: lessons and feats of the past that we forget at our peril. VOTE FOR CAESAR is just such a compendium' Sunday Telegraph
'a useful antidote to the assumption that what we've got today is either laready the best we could have or will be soon' GUARDIAN
Peter Jones was educated at Cambridge University and taught Classics at Cambridge and at Newcastle University, before retiring in 1997. He has written a regular column, 'Ancient & Modern', in the Spectator for many years now and is the author of various books on the Classics.
General Fields
- :
- : Orion Publishing Co
- : Orion (an Imprint of The Orion Publishing Group Ltd )
- : 0.264
- : April 2009
- : 198mm X 129mm X 19mm
- : United Kingdom
- : books
Special Fields
- : Peter Jones
- : Paperback
- : 1
- : 937
- : 272
