The book is a bit expensive, although I'd like to have a copy. Given the turn that modern politics has taken, I guess all that matters was this sentence: "Tod

The book is a bit expensive, although I'd like to have a copy. Given the turn that modern politics has taken, I guess all that matters was this sentence: "Today, as cultures cross-pollinate, and as technologies topple timeless ways of living, it is an open question whether the familiarity of Rome’s ancient forms will be felt much by those who live in the future, beyond the next horizon." It's not a bad question really, with 'Rome' as a stand-in for all the well-worn bits of culture. Are 500 year old nursery rhymes still in practice and will they be? You can certainly see the change in the teaching of literature in schools. Latin or Greek are scarcely taught anymore. No doubt there are 100's of examples. 'Rome' of course is an imaginary construct that is really a later Anglo-American version of historical matters. I doubt I'll live long enough to see the results of states that knock out the underpinnings of common culture. Perhaps they'll build their own fresh ones, perhaps it never mattered.