We often lament about the disappearance of culture in the West. The opera has been replaced by cheap, mass-produced Hollywood movies, classical music is often scorned among the younger generations, while art has become more a form of self-expression, if not a psychological tool, than a gift ... More
It is sometimes amazing to see how the most ancient tales and legends seem to have survived the era of rationality and industrialization. Even in those countries that first industrialized in the 19th century, certain customs and traditions today echo more ancient, sometimes even pre-Christian, ... More
One of the fundamental characteristics of Western culture, among many others, would be the writing of history. History, the recording of past events and an attempt to explain them is indeed a discipline born, as we know, with Herodotus. Of all the ancient civilizations that have developped ... More
This modern infatuation with ancient Greece and Rome stems from a particular moment in European history, the so-called Renaissance of the fiteenth century, when a new myth of European cultural ancestry was constructed. [...] The Renaissance was not so much a ‘rebirth’ as an invention, ... More
All over Europe, there seems to be a trend toward the revitalization of ancient, local languages or dialects, most of which were replaced over the centuries by what became national languages. The case is especially striking in France, where, for most of the 20th century, pupils and students could ... More
