Classica Americana: The Greek and Roman Heritage in the United States [Hardcover]

Meyer Reinhold (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 370 pages
• Publisher: Wayne State Univ Pr (April 1984)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0814317448
• ISBN-13: 978-0814317440
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,558,617 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Some fascinating insights, December 28, 2004

By 

Peter Vinton Jr. (Not near Washington, DC) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Classica Americana: The Greek and Roman Heritage in the United States (Hardcover)

The classical education of the Framers is worth examining, since so much of what they absorbed to mean liberty and freedom must necessarily have come from their respective schooling. Thomas Jefferson (himself a William & Mary dropout) frequently extolled the virtues of classical learning in America. While attention is focused upon Jefferson, George Mason, John Adams, and other well-known "giants" of the period, Reinhold does not neglect lesser-known players such as John Dickinson, who once remarked in his opposition to the Stamp Act, the roles played by Plato, Demosthenes, Cicero, and in particular Plutarch's _Lives_ in cultivating his understanding of liberty. History as a whole was a considerably more important field of study in eighteenth century than it is today. The Framers were as a whole well-read, yet most of what they read was not American-produced, but European literature and law. Reinhold makes a point of examining the importance of mythological studies and how they also may have contributed something to the larger-than-life reverence the Framers accorded liberty, and the virtue with which they surrounded the issues of freedom and independence. An abbreviated history of America's earliest museums, libraries, and historical and philosophical societies (including Benjamin Franklin's American Philosophical Society) is also part of the narrative.