Synopses & Reviews
Werner Jaeger's classic three-volume work, originally published in 1939, is now available in paperback. Paideia, the shaping of Greek character through a union of civilization, tradition, literature, and philosophy is the basis for Jaeger's evaluation of Hellenic culture.
Volume I describes the foundation, growth, and crisis of Greek culture during the archaic and classical epochs, ending with the collapse of the Athenian empire. The second and third volumes of the work deal with the intellectual history of ancient Greece in the Age of Plato, the 4th century B.C.--the age in which Greece lost everything that is valued in this world--state, power, liberty--but still clung to the concept of paideia. As its last great poet, Menander summarized the primary role of this ideal in Greek culture when he said: "The possession which no one can take away from man is paideia."
Review
"The most illuminating work I have ever read on Greece. I found myself wishing...that it could be required reading for all the multitudes today who are drawing up schemes for a new world." Edith Hamilton, The New York Times
Review
"[Paideia] is intended for the general reader, and it is probably God's gift to educators, because it conveys to the reader in a clear and attractive form, covering the ground comprehensively, a conception of the central point of vew in Hellenic society and culture." Edmund Wilson, The New Yorker
Synopsis
The final volume of Werner Jaeger's three volume Paideia begins at the same point as its predecessor the fall of the Periclean empire but pursues a different line of intellectual development. Its subject is the logical antithesis of the philosophical forces of the age those cultural forces, such as medicine, which depend upon practical experience and common sense rather than upon first principles. After exploring the conflict between these two opposing ideas, Jaeger returns to Plato, and discusses his prophetic last work, The Laws, as a prelude to the tragic decline and fall of the free city-state of the classical era.
Synopsis
Werner Jaeger's classic three-volume work, originally published in 1939, is now available in paperback. Paideia, the shaping of Greek character through a union of civilization, tradition, literature, and philosophy is the basis for Jaeger's evaluation of Hellenic culture.
Volume I describes the foundation, growth, and crisis of Greek culture during the archaic and classical epochs, ending with the collapse of the Athenian empire. The second and third volumes of the work deal with the intellectual history of ancient Greece in the Age of Plato, the 4th century B.C.--the age in which Greece lost everything that is valued in this world--state, power, liberty--but still clung to the concept of paideia. As its last great poet, Menander summarized the primary role of this ideal in Greek culture when he said: "The possession which no one can take away from man is paideia."