Buy used: $8.08

$3.99 delivery January 4 - 20. Details

Arrives after Christmas. Need a gift sooner? Send an Amazon Gift Card instantly by email or SMS.

Select delivery location

Used: Very Good | Details

Sold by awesomebooksusa

Access codes and supplements are not guaranteed with used items.

Have one to sell?

Sell on Amazon

Flip to back Flip to front

Listen Playing... Paused You're listening to a sample of the Audible audio edition.
Learn more

See this image

Follow the Author

Ferdinand Mount

Full Circle: How the Classical World Came Back to Us Hardcover – January 1, 2010

by Ferdinand Mount (Author)

21 ratings

3.4 on Goodreads

79 ratings

See all formats and editions

Price

New from

Used from

Hardcover

"Please retry"

$8.08

—

$8.08

Paperback

"Please retry"

$7.63

—

$7.62

A fine copy in very good, only minor edge wear to DJ

Language

English
Publisher

Simon & Schuster
Publication date

January 1, 2010
Dimensions

6.46 x 1.34 x 9.53 inches
ISBN-10

184737798X
ISBN-13

978-1847377982
See all details

Thomas Joseph White
18
Paperback
15 offers from $34.95
Scott Hahn
106
Hardcover
4 offers from $21.95

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Simon & Schuster (January 1, 2010)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 184737798X
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1847377982
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.32 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.46 x 1.34 x 9.53 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #3,003,860 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews:
21 ratings

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Videos

Help others learn more about this product by uploading a video!

Upload your video

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.

Ferdinand Mount

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read author blogs and more

Customer reviews

5 star		51%
4 star		27%
3 star 0% (0%)		0%
2 star		12%
1 star		10%

How customer reviews and ratings work

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

M. G. Azevedo

Expensive, but cultural and enjoyable to read

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on July 23, 2010

Verified Purchase

The book describes the similarities between our modern world and the classical Greek and Roman's world.

Bath, exercise, sex, food, art, religion , fame, culture, nature, who would say our way of seeing and understanding them are much the same of the classical world ?

The book takes you from the SPA to the Baths of Caracala, from the gym to the gymnasium , (the body is beautiful, the body become a god); from the sex free of guilt to Cattullus advocating sex with women or sex with man because there no such a thing as rigth and wrong in this context; from the celebrity culture to the Roman obsession with fame; from the understanding that the world is composed of matter and is no more immortal than we are, to Lucretiu's "So it is a fair inference that sky and earth too had their birthday and will have their day of doom".

Quite profound, but easy and enjoyable to read this is a book to anyone interested in the culture and spirit of our epoch.

Only four stars because is too expensive and the table of contents are not enable wich is not admissible at this price.

5 people found this helpful

Helpful

Michael E. Goldsby

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 24, 2014

Verified Purchase

Good condition, as advertised, good price, reasonably shipping time.

Helpful

Ralph Blumenau

A mostly sardonic look at the state we are in

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on May 15, 2011

The argument of this book is that, after two millennia or so of Christian culture, we are in many ways reverting to the attitudes and tastes of classical antiquity.

In the first part of the book, Mount deals with the cult of the body: the Ancient World took pleasure in it, pampered it with baths, trained it with exercise, gloried in sex, indulged it in sophisticated wines and elaborately prepared food. Today baths, gyms and fitness clubs, wine and restaurant critics again abound.

He describes the baths of the Roman Empire in great detail: they were gigantic structures, almost like cathedrals which many of them subsequently became. Some Christians deplored bathing for pleasure, suspected public baths are conducive to lustful thoughts; and it was not until the late 1850s that the building of new public baths - initially meant as a boon for the working classes - began to take off in Britain.

The fitness cult he traces back, in Germany to Jahn and in Britain to the influence of Charles Kingsley's Muscular Christianity.

The chapter on food and drink wittily exposes the pretentiousness and snobbery of foodies and oenophiles both in antiquity and in our own times, and contrasts it with the more austere attitudes to eating and drinking in the intervening Christian centuries. As in earlier chapters, one is impressed by the range not only of his knowledge of antiquity but also of the way he pulls together a large variety of manifestations in present day culture.

It is clear from the part of the book entitled `The Body' that Mount thinks there is something missing in both ancient and modern scepticism, something that might be called spiritual awareness and spiritual values. In the longer part, entitled `The Mind', his attack becomes fiercer. There is a magnificently written chapter (whether you agree with it or not) entitled `The God-Botherers' in which he trenchantly sets about the aggressive and what he considers the shallow attitudes of Dawkins, Grayling, Dennett, Christopher Hitchens and others like them.

Those writers may have contributed to undermining traditional religion (or rather, they merely stridently articulate what is happening anyway); but, now as in antiquity, many people embrace weird cults instead. Astrology, of which there is very little evidence in the Christian centuries, flourished in Antiquity and has columns today even in the quality press. There was a proliferation of cults in late Antiquity as there is today. (He discusses only Christian cults like Pentacostalism and, in a later chapter and in a different context, the cult of Gaia. He could have added many other, admittedly rather smaller cults, like Madonna's Kabbalism, Aquarians, Wiccas, Moonies, Scientology, Hare Krishna, and the followers of the Maharishi.)

In the next section Mount establishes a link between the way politicians are expected to press the flesh, to show themselves on television and submit themselves to rude interviewers today and the lively and participatory politics of the Athenian and Roman Republics - little or none of that in the period between the Roman Empire and Lord Reith. (But vide Hogarth's "An Election".)

The next chapter links the PR-inspired worship of celebrities in our time with that of the Roman triumphs - contrasting it with the Christian humility of ascribing any achievements to God - but were not saints, the legends promoted about them, the cults surrounding them and the worship of them akin to the worship of secular idols?

In the next chapter, on Art, Mount shows parallels in the commodification of art, the accumulation of art works for show and for commerce; but for the gimmickry of much modern art there is no parallel in antiquity.

In the chapter on Nature he shows how both today and in antiquity there were people who delighted and rejoiced in it. It is, incidentally, the only chapter in which Mount - clearly a lyrical nature lover himself - shows an unalloyed identification with that particular aspect of our age, and he does not show here the witty mockery he bestows on other contemporary trends. (His assertion that Christianity seldom saw labour as a bringing about spiritual fulfilment strikes me as rather sweeping: that "laborare est orare" was taught both by the Benedictines and by the Protestants.)

I am not entirely convinced by this book: it strikes me as being rather selective, occasionally a little forced (in content, though never in style). But I have learnt a great deal about many aspects of the ancient world and about some of our own. There is an immensely fertile and cultivated mind here; I share his basically conservative critique of the shallowness and meretriciousness of so much of contemporary culture; and although there is often almost a stream of consciousness connection between one thought and another, I found it a joy to follow these links in the company of such a witty, learned, sensitive, and morally committed author.

20 people found this helpful

Helpful

Ralph Blumenau

A mostly sardonic look at the state we are in

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on May 15, 2011

The argument of this book is that, after two millennia or so of Christian culture, we are in many ways reverting to the attitudes and tastes of classical antiquity.

In the first part of the book, Mount deals with the cult of the body: the Ancient World took pleasure in it, pampered it with baths, trained it with exercise, gloried in sex, indulged it in sophisticated wines and elaborately prepared food. Today baths, gyms and fitness clubs, wine and restaurant critics again abound.

He describes the baths of the Roman Empire in great detail: they were gigantic structures, almost like cathedrals which many of them subsequently became. Some Christians deplored bathing for pleasure, suspected public baths are conducive to lustful thoughts; and it was not until the late 1850s that the building of new public baths - initially meant as a boon for the working classes - began to take off in Britain.

The fitness cult he traces back, in Germany to Jahn and in Britain to the influence of Charles Kingsley's Muscular Christianity.

The chapter on food and drink wittily exposes the pretentiousness and snobbery of foodies and oenophiles both in antiquity and in our own times, and contrasts it with the more austere attitudes to eating and drinking in the intervening Christian centuries. As in earlier chapters, one is impressed by the range not only of his knowledge of antiquity but also of the way he pulls together a large variety of manifestations in present day culture.

It is clear from the part of the book entitled `The Body' that Mount thinks there is something missing in both ancient and modern scepticism, something that might be called spiritual awareness and spiritual values. In the longer part, entitled `The Mind', his attack becomes fiercer. There is a magnificently written chapter (whether you agree with it or not) entitled `The God-Botherers' in which he trenchantly sets about the aggressive and what he considers the shallow attitudes of Dawkins, Grayling, Dennett, Christopher Hitchens and others like them.

Those writers may have contributed to undermining traditional religion (or rather, they merely stridently articulate what is happening anyway); but, now as in antiquity, many people embrace weird cults instead. Astrology, of which there is very little evidence in the Christian centuries, flourished in Antiquity and has columns today even in the quality press. There was a proliferation of cults in late Antiquity as there is today. (He discusses only Christian cults like Pentacostalism and, in a later chapter and in a different context, the cult of Gaia. He could have added many other, admittedly rather smaller cults, like Madonna's Kabbalism, Aquarians, Wiccas, Moonies, Scientology, Hare Krishna, and the followers of the Maharishi.)

In the next section Mount establishes a link between the way politicians are expected to press the flesh, to show themselves on television and submit themselves to rude interviewers today and the lively and participatory politics of the Athenian and Roman Republics - little or none of that in the period between the Roman Empire and Lord Reith. (But vide Hogarth's "An Election".)

The next chapter links the PR-inspired worship of celebrities in our time with that of the Roman triumphs - contrasting it with the Christian humility of ascribing any achievements to God - but were not saints, the legends promoted about them, the cults surrounding them and the worship of them akin to the worship of secular idols?

In the next chapter, on Art, Mount shows parallels in the commodification of art, the accumulation of art works for show and for commerce; but for the gimmickry of much modern art there is no parallel in antiquity.

In the chapter on Nature he shows how both today and in antiquity there were people who delighted and rejoiced in it. It is, incidentally, the only chapter in which Mount - clearly a lyrical nature lover himself - shows an unalloyed identification with that particular aspect of our age, and he does not show here the witty mockery he bestows on other contemporary trends. (His assertion that Christianity seldom saw labour as a bringing about spiritual fulfilment strikes me as rather sweeping: that "laborare est orare" was taught both by the Benedictines and by the Protestants.)

I am not entirely convinced by this book: it strikes me as being rather selective, occasionally a little forced (in content, though never in style). But I have learnt a great deal about many aspects of the ancient world and about some of our own. There is an immensely fertile and cultivated mind here; I share his basically conservative critique of the shallowness and meretriciousness of so much of contemporary culture; and although there is often almost a stream of consciousness connection between one thought and another, I found it a joy to follow these links in the company of such a witty, learned, sensitive, and morally committed author.

9 people found this helpful

Helpful

Top reviews from other countries

Alan Gelson

Ferdinand Mount explores his Full Cycle thesis with wit and erudition

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on January 3, 2021

Verified Purchase

A fascinating and insightful book which I have read and reread with interest and delight.
It explores the idea that with the decline in Christian observance and belief we have returned to a pre Christian Classical society with many Roman and Greek characteristics. It is full of knowledge of the Classical world and it can not fail to inform and illuminate and advance insight into our own world.

Ms. K. Johnston

We think we're sophisticated now?

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on November 23, 2013

Verified Purchase

This book has been a wonderful read and Ferdinand Mount has a very dry sense of humour, something I enjoy very much. Full Circle is perfect for anyone who loves classical Greece and Rome and how their influence is still with us today in the 21st century. The book was a great bargain and arrived very well packaged, so would buy from this seller again.

James P. McEvoy

Thought-provoking

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on September 2, 2015

Verified Purchase

The author reckons the modern world often has more in common with the ancient Greeks and Romans than with our more recent ancestors. He's probably right and presents a good argument in some chapters, although at other times it feels like a stretch (animal rights go unmentioned, for instance, in the chapter on nature and the environmental movement). Well-written, humorous at times and highly recommended if you like history.

James Connelly

Mount writes with style and directness

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on July 4, 2015

Verified Purchase

Mount is a most entertaining writer.

david healy

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on December 23, 2016

Verified Purchase

Completely satisfied