Know Thyself, Ingrid Rossellini
Know Thyself, Ingrid Rossellini
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Know Thyself
Western Identity from Classical Greece to the Renaissance

Author: Ingrid Rossellini

Narrator: January LaVoy

Unabridged: 14 hr 44 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 05/22/2018

Synopsis

A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2018

A lively and timely introduction to the roots of self-understanding--who we are and how we should act--in the cultures of ancient Greece, the Roman Empire, and Middle Ages and the Renaissance

     "Know thyself"--this fundamental imperative appeared for the first time in ancient Greece, specifically in Delphi, the temple of the god Apollo, who represented the enlightened power of reason. For the Greeks, self-knowledge and identity were the basics of their civilization and their sources were to be found in where one was born and into which social group. These determined who you were and what your duties were. In this book the independent scholar Ingrid Rossellini surveys the major ideas that, from Greek and Roman antiquity through the Christian medieval era up to the dawn of modernity in the Renaissance, have guided the Western project of self-knowledge. Addressing the curious lay reader with an interdisciplinary approach that includes numerous references to the visual arts, Know Thyself will reintroduce readers to the most profound and enduring ways our civilization has framed the issues of self and society, in the process helping us rediscover the very building blocks of our personality.

About The Author

INGRID ROSSELLINI was born in Rome and educated there, and later received a BA, master's, and Ph.D. in Italian Literature from Columbia, writing her dissertation on Petrarch. She has taught literature and Italian film at Columbia, NYU, Harvard, Princeton, and other universities. She is the daughter of the actress Ingrid Bergman and the director Roberto Rossellini; Isabella Rossellini is her sister. She lives in New York City with her husband and two children.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Brian on May 08, 2021

Well, I enjoyed it. Rossellini gives a grand tour of the classics, acting as an enthusiastic, exceptionally knowledgeable guide. She describes her work as history with a psychological angle, showing the evolution of humanity’s sense of self. And she does do lots of character portraits of great men (......more

Goodreads review by Ethan on August 21, 2018

The book claims to be an exploration of the idea of what it means to be human in the Western tradition from Greece to the Renaissance. The book proves to be primarily a discussion of the history of the Western tradition from Greece to the Renaissance, painfully dependent on secondary sources for much......more

Goodreads review by Jake on August 10, 2019

Claim what you will. Title this as you must. Regardless of your classifications this is a generalized history of Europe in the classical sense. There are 5 sections that fit what I would box in "classical scholarship". This is the type of stuff the founding fathers would have been reflecting on. The......more

Goodreads review by Kathee on June 09, 2019

Interesting historical survey but disappointing because it didn't really deliver in regard to discussing the sociological or psychological impact of ideas on an individual of the times, which I had thought was the purpose of the book.......more

Goodreads review by Paul on December 15, 2023

It is always difficult to walk the line between academic detail and broad brush, lay-reader appeal. Indeed, Ingrid Rossellini acknowledges this in her foreword. To her credit, she manages to gives us both sweep and granularity. However, there are times when we linger too long on the minutiae of spec......more

Quotes

"Rumors of the death of Western civilization must be questioned when a work of popular history as absorbing and readable as this is published...New Western civ classes could ask for no better overview." 
—Booklist, starred review

“In a thrilling story of pride and humility from the Greeks to the Renaissance, Know Thyself offers an entire education in a book. Ingrid Rossellini shows us where we have come from and who we need to be as citizens in a diverse and ever-changing world.”
—Barry Strauss, Bryce and Edith M. Bowmar Professor in Humanistic Studies at Cornell University and author of The Death of Caesar: The Story of History’s Most Famous Assassination

"Rossellini’s epic is dazzling." 
—Publishers Weekly

“Polymath Rossellini shares the fruits of her broad knowledge of literature, philosophy, art, and history in this…highly rewarding work…a highly satisfying journey across centuries of culture...Rossellini gives us illuminating classes in art history, Western civilization, philosophy, and religion, all rolled into one book that must be read closely and pondered fully.”
—Kirkus, starred review 

 
“Scholar Rossellini’s grand study, in many ways, presents a history of the Western soul…Rossellini is skilled in teasing out the metaphysical and cultural hinges that shaped the Western mind…a scholarly yet accessible tour through the history of Western civilization, pleasantly detailing the rises, declines, rediscoveries, and revolutions along the way.”
—Library Journal 

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