Classical professors looked forward with a mixture of eagerness and anxiety to the recent $40 million version of the Odyssey on NBC. Would the production reveal Homer, or would the Hollywoodification of his poem so distort the plot that we would be spending the remainder of our careers disabusing students and others of false impressions?...
The author David Halberstam gave the principal address at the convocation opening Brown’s 1994-95 academic year. Time was when only the president of the university spoke, but recent presidents have instituted the policy of having a distinguished visitor give the main address. Halberstam is indeed a distinguished man with many significant books to his credit....
I don’t like to write such, but this note will have a crotchety tone. I have found in reading David McCullough’s Truman only one misprint. On page 956 the Latin word firmissime is spelled firmissine in a Latin citation delivered on the occasion of Truman’s receiving an honorary degree from Oxford. An English translation precedes,...