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  • The Iliad was more popular than the Odyssey beginning in ancient times, and continued to be all the way up to World War One. Then, something changed. Now the Odyssey leaves the Iliad in the dust in terms of which poem gets assigned more frequently in school, in book sales, and simply in the stated preference of readers. What happened? Ryan and Jonathan read Edward Luttwak's essay, Homer Inc., about the thriving industry of Homer translations, the ancient redactors of Homer, the historicity of the Trojan War, and one of the perennial questions any humanist must answer - and to which Luttwak gives his own idiosyncratic response: Why does Homer matter?

    Edward Luttwak's Homer Inc.: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v34/n04/edward-luttwak/homer-inc

    NH episode on Melanchthon and Homer: https://newhumanists.buzzsprout.com/1791279/13181921-return-of-the-old-gods-in-germany-episode-lii

    NH episode on Weil and Homer: https://newhumanists.buzzsprout.com/1791279/10429309-the-iliad-or-the-poem-of-force-episode-xxi

    NH episode on Nietzsche and Homer: https://newhumanists.buzzsprout.com/1791279/13949908-nietzsche-homer-and-cruelty-episode-lvi

    Stephen Mitchell's Iliad: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9781439163382

    Robert Fagles's Iliad: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780140275360

    Emily Wilson's Iliad: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9781324001805

    Richmond Lattimore's Iliad: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780226470498

    Peter Green's Iliad: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780520281431

    Robert Fitzgerald's Iliad: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780374529055

    New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/

    Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores.

    Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

  • For the first time, a collection of Irving Babbitt's and Paul Elmer More's correspondence has been published. Eric Adler, the editor of the collection (titled "Humanistic Letters") joins the show to discuss the collection, New Humanism, and the question that caused more controversy between Babbitt and More than anything else: Do humanists need to believe in God?

    Eric Adler's Humanistic Letters: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780826222909

    Eric Adler's The Battle of the Classics: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780197680810

    Irving Babbitt's Literature and the American College: https://amzn.to/3YIP0Ml

    New Humanists episode Can Humanism Replace Christianity? https://newhumanists.buzzsprout.com/1791279/12494774-can-humanism-replace-christianity-episode-xliv

    Justin Garrison and Ryan Holston's The Historical Mind: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9781438478432

    Ryan Holston's Irving Babbitt and Christianity: A Response to T.S. Eliot: https://www.academia.edu/43227260/Irving_Babbitt_and_Christianity_A_Response_to_T_S_Eliot

    C.S. Lewis's The Abolition of Man: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780060652944

    Norman Foerster's Humanism and America: https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.88302/page/n5/mode/2up

    Luke Sheahan's The Intellectual Kinship of Irving Babbitt and C.S.Lewis: https://www.pdcnet.org/humanitas/content/humanitas_2016_0029_0001_0005_0042

    C.S. Lewis's Mere Christianity: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780060652920

    Paul Elmer More's The Greek Tradition: https://amzn.to/4dxbXGQ

    New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/

    Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores.


    Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

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  • Love for Cicero, attention to rhetorical form, use of pagan wisdom for political thought - these are all hallmarks of the Renaissance humanists. But not their invention. In fact, you find the same things among some medieval thinkers. Jonathan and Ryan read and discuss selections from the Policraticus and the Metalogicon, two works by the 12th century bishop of Chartres, John of Salisbury, who was an exemplar of this medieval brand of humanism.

    Richard M. Gamble's The Great Tradition: https://amzn.to/3Q4lRnO

    Homer's Iliad: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780374529055

    Homer's Odyssey: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780374525743

    Cicero's Pro Archia Poeta: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780674991743

    New Humanists episode on Leonardo Bruni: https://newhumanists.buzzsprout.com/1791279/14460440-mediocrity-versus-glory-in-the-renaissance-episode-lxii

    S.A. Dance's Authentic Grammar in Classical Schools: https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2024/05/authentic-grammar-in-classical-schools

    New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/

    Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores.

    Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com



  • Thomas Aquinas is also known as the "Angelic Doctor," but he was quite capable of coming down from the heavens and getting practical. In two selections from his work included in Richard M. Gamble's The Great Tradition, we find some of Thomas' advice and outlook for students and teachers, including a discussion of whether teaching is an inherently contemplative or active pursuit.

    Richard M. Gamble's The Great Tradition: https://amzn.to/3Q4lRnO

    New Humanists episode Education that Makes Aquinas Look Modern, feat. John Peterson: https://newhumanists.buzzsprout.com/1791279/12698279-education-that-makes-aquinas-look-modern-feat-john-peterson-episode-xlvi

    Pope Leo XIII's Aeterni Patris: https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_04081879_aeterni-patris.html

    Augustine's De Magistro (The Teacher): https://amzn.to/4cUbVZ4

    A.G. Sertillanges's The Intellectual Life: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780813206462

    Homer Camp: https://ancientlanguage.com/homer-camp/

    Bible Camp: https://ancientlanguage.com/bible-camp/

    New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/

    Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores.


    Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

  • The things of God belong to a heavenly kingdom. But politics is taken up with what is earthly. Surely, therefore, Christians should keep politics at a distance as much as possible. Right? Even while defending the life of contemplation and retreat from the earthly, Francesco Petrarch and Giovanni Bocaccio laud Christian involvement in public life. Petrarch goes so far as to dream of a Julius Caesar reborn in medieval Europe and baptized a Christian, who goes on to conquer Egypt from the Muslims and present her as a gift - this time not to Cleopatra - but to Christ.

    James Hankins's Virtue Politics: https://amzn.to/3UiQpp3

    Niccolo Machiavelli's The Prince: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780199535699

    C.S. Lewis's The Four Loves: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780062565396

    Calvert Watkins's How to Kill a Dragon: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780195144130

    New Humanists episode on Leonardo Bruni: https://newhumanists.buzzsprout.com/1791279/14460440-mediocrity-versus-glory-in-the-renaissance-episode-lxii

    Sallust's Catilinarian Conspiracy: https://amzn.to/4chKY1C

    Henry David Thoreau's Walden: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780460876353

    Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780385486804

    New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/

    Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores.

    Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com



  • Imagine that you are the leading figure in a movement to renew the study and appreciation of classical literature, but you have come to the end of your life and not only has the educational and political situation not improved - it has gotten worse. Such was the vista spread out before Petrarch in his twilight. Jonathan and Ryan read and discuss some of Petrarch's correspondence, recording the meditations of the great humanist as he wrestled with civilizational decline, the possibility of rebirth, and the awareness of how little time he had left.

    Richard M. Gamble's The Great Tradition: https://amzn.to/3Q4lRnO

    Cicero's Pro Archia Poeta: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780674991743

    Tim Griffith's The Case for Classical Languages: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UquUv7wzAgQ

    Ryan Hammill's Saints Versus Statesmen: https://americanreformer.org/2024/04/saints-versus-statesmen/

    New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/

    Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores.

    Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

  • Are the liberal arts for everyone? We tend to think that the liberal arts can be helpful and edifying for anyone. But even amidst the humanist enthusiasm for the study of letters, the Renaissance writer Pier Paolo Vergerio denied that the liberal arts could improve a corrupt soul. In his mind, the liberal arts are proper only for those born free from the demands of moneymaking and furthermore, possessing a liberal temper. What is a liberal temper? And what are the liberal arts anyways? Jonathan and Ryan discuss Vergerio's treatise "The Character and Studies Befitting a Free-Born Youth" which, even before the printing press, was a sensation in Europe, and was copied and re-copied many times.

    Richard M. Gamble's The Great Tradition: https://amzn.to/3Q4lRnO

    I Tatti Renaissance Library's Humanist Educational Treatises (containing Pier Paolo Vergerio's entire treatise, The Character and Studies Befitting a Free-Born Youth, in Latin and English): https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780674007598

    Sallust's Catilinarian Conspiracy: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780674996847

    Cicero's Pro Archia Poeta: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780674991743

    New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/

    Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores.

    Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

  • We think we know what a "republic" is, but what did the Romans mean with their phrase "res publica"? What about the Italian humanists? And how did they distinguish a republic from a tyranny? We take a look at two more chapters from James Hankins's book, Virtue Politics, a groundbreaking examination of Renaissance political theory. These chapters focus on the question of legitimacy: What makes a government legitimate? What makes it illegitimate?

    James Hankins's Virtue Politics: https://amzn.to/3UiQpp3

    Francesco Petrarch's Invectives: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780674011540

    New Humanists episode on Nietzsche and slavery: https://newhumanists.buzzsprout.com/1791279/14044549-compassion-versus-classical-antiquity-episode-lvii

    Cicero's De Officiis: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780199540716

    Robert Harris's Imperium: A Novel of Ancient Rome: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780743498661

    Adrian Goldsworthy's Caesar: Life of a Colossus: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780300126891

    New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/

    Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores.


    Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

  • A pandemic. A changing climate. A hopelessly divided country. Christianity threatened by Islam. Universities completely out of touch with normal people. Late medieval Italy was a basket case. All the while, a small group of men was dreaming of the Roman Empire - maybe emulating Rome was the way to save Italy? In his book Virtue Politics, James Hankins elucidates the neglected political thought of the humanists of the Italian Renaissance, which he names "virtue politics." Jonathan and Ryan outline Hankins's arguments.

    James Hankins's Virtue Politics: https://amzn.to/3UiQpp3

    N.T. Wright's The New Testament and the People of God: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780800626815

    Augustine's City of God: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780140448948

    Thomas Aquinas' De Regno: https://isidore.co/aquinas/DeRegno.htm

    Dante's De Monarchia: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9781502885555

    Desiderius Erasmus' The Praise of Folly: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780691165646

    New Humanists episode on T.S. Eliot's Praise for Privilege: https://newhumanists.buzzsprout.com/1791279/9884564-t-s-eliot-s-praise-for-privilege-episode-xvi

    New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/

    Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores.

    Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

  • The poet of Joan of Arc, and a notable example of a female writer in the premodern period, Christine de Pizan took a turn at the popular humanist genre of the mirror to princes in her book "The Book of the Body Politics." Jonathan and Ryan take a look at her characterization of virtue, corporal punishment, and what it takes to educate a Caesar.

    Richard M. Gamble's The Great Tradition: https://amzn.to/3Q4lRnO

    Christine de Pizan's The Book of the Body Politic: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780521422598

    C.S. Lewis's The Weight of Glory: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780060653200

    Christopher Schlecht's "Did Dorothy Sayers Get Education Wrong?": https://youtu.be/--gjw3gaG-U?si=7OLZ-SlExk8_QMp2

    Joris-Karl Huysmans's Against the Grain: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780199555116

    New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/

    Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores.

    Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

  • In his essay "On Educating Children," a follow-up to his denunciation of pedantry, Michel de Montaigne warns that "natural affection makes parents too soft" and incapable of properly disciplining their children, or even of letting their children take the risks and encounter the dangers they ought to. Book-learning, in Montaigne's essay, takes a backseat to the development of real virtue; erudition is ornament, not foundation.

    Michel de Montaigne's Complete Essays: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780140446043

    Herodotus' Histories: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9781400031146

    Rhetorica Ad Herennium: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780674994447

    New Humanists episode "The First English Conversation, feat. Dr. Colin Gorrie": https://newhumanists.buzzsprout.com/1791279/11362004-the-first-english-conversation-feat-dr-colin-gorrie-episode-xxxii

    New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/

    Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores.

    Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

  • When Tim Griffith was coaching soccer and reading ancient Roman rhetorical theory, he realized he had stumbled across a pedagogical goldmine. In this episode, Jonathan and Ryan talk with Tim about raising kids as native Latin speakers, the roles that comprehensible input vs. grammar instruction play in the language classroom, prescriptive versus descriptive grammar, and Roman rhetoric. The product of years of experience and study, Tim’s approach to teaching Latin has borne fruit in his students at New Saint Andrews College, in his curriculum projects at Picta Dicta, and in no small way in the influence he has had on the Ancient Language Institute.

    Rhetorica Ad Herennium: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780674994447

    Quintilian’s Institutes of Oratory (Volume I): https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780674995918

    Picta Dicta: https://pictadicta.com/

    Shop Picta Dicta at Roman Roads Press: https://romanroadspress.com/latin

    Hans Ørberg’s Lingua Latina Per Se Illustrata: Familia Romana: https://amzn.to/3hoLz7V

    W.H.D. Rouse’s Latin on the Direct Method: https://books.google.com/books/about/Latin_on_the_Direct_Method_By_W_H_D_Rous.html?id=oMXxMgEACAAJ

    New Saint Andrews College: https://nsa.edu/

    ALI Latin classes for adults: https://ancientlanguage.com/register-latin/

    ALI Ancient Greek classes for adults: https://ancientlanguage.com/register-greek/

    ALI Latin for Kids Program: https://ancientlanguage.com/latin-for-kids/

    ALI Latin for Kids Self-Study Course: https://ancientlanguage.com/latin-curriculum/

    Erasmus' De Copia: https://amzn.to/3Phf9MH

    Paul Distler's Teach the Latin, I Pray You: https://amzn.to/4cflhPC

  • We threw off the monarchy... now what? Having established a republic on American soil, the Founding Fathers were faced with the question of how to educate a new generation of people who would protect American liberty. The most underrated of the Founding Fathers, Dr. Benjamin Rush, devoted considerable time and attention to this question. In this episode, Jonathan and Ryan are joined by Clifford Humphrey to discuss Rush's "Thoughts Upon the Mode of Education Proper in a Republic."

    Clifford Humphrey's Are "Merely Christian" Colleges Enough?: https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2023/02/are-merely-christian-colleges-enough

    Carl Trueman's Mere Christianity on Campus: https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2023/02/mere-christianity-on-campus

    Clifford Humphrey's The Ends of "Mere Classical" Schools: https://americanreformer.org/2023/04/the-ends-of-mere-classical-schools/

    Our American Stories' episode on Benjamin Rush: https://www.ouramericanstories.com/podcast/history/founding-father-benjamin-rush

    Benjamin Rush's Thoughts Upon the Mode of Education Proper in a Republic: https://explorepahistory.com/odocument.php?docId=1-4-218#

    Ian Dagg's Regime and Education: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9783031373824

    Plutarch's Greek Lives (includes Lycurgus): https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780199540051

    Joseph Addison's Cato: A Tragedy: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780865974432

    Eric Nelson's The Hebrew Republic: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780674062139

    New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/

    Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores.

    Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

  • Leonardo Bruni was the titan of Renaissance historians and a prolific humanist. In a long letter to an aristocratic Italian woman, Battista Malatesta, he lays out his philosophy of humanistic education, which is meant to help the student achieve glory. But laziness or ineptitude, he says, threatens the student always, and will drag her down to crawl alongside other mediocrities. Bruni insists on deep reading of the greatest orators, poets, and historians, alongside biblical and theological study.

    Richard M. Gamble's The Great Tradition: https://amzn.to/3Q4lRnO

    I Tatti Renaissance Library's Humanist Educational Treatises (containing Bruni's entire letter in Latin and English): https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780674007598

    Leonardo Bruni's History of the Florentine People (Volume I): https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780674005068

    Donald Phillip Verene's The Art of Humane Education: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780801440397

    C.S. Lewis's On Stories (includes The Parthenon and The Optative): https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780062643605

    New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/

    Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores.


    Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

  • Michel de Montaigne was a native Latin speaker in modern Europe and yet a great innovator in French letters; among other things, he invited the genre known as the essay. His elegant, searching essays are intended to expose the reality of his own soul - and that of his readers. In "On Schoolmasters' Learning," this most studios of men wonders aloud whether education is actually good for you. After all, look at all the people obsessed with books and yet completely useless for anything productive. Maybe study actually harms your soul?

    Michel de Montaigne's Complete Essays: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780140446043

    Cicero's Pro Archia Poeta: https://amzn.to/49k1zjc

    Aristophanes' Clouds: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780801485749

    The Cost of Glory | Lucullus I: https://share.transistor.fm/s/4ef111e2

    Plato's Hippias Major: https://amzn.to/3SI8PA6

    New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/

    Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores.

    Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

  • Aeneas Silvius was an accomplished Renaissance humanist, author of erotic literature, and influential aide to emperors and popes (and an antipope). Then, he became a pope himself. As Pope Pius II, he then added memoirist, urban planner, and antiquarian to his list of accomplishments. He contributed to the popular Renaissance "mirror of princes" genre in a letter to a young boy-king in Central Europe, where he makes the case for reading pagan poetry as a Christian.

    Richard M. Gamble's The Great Tradition: https://amzn.to/3Q4lRnO

    New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/

    Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores.

    Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com


  • Jonathan and Ryan turn to a set of selections from the Prince of Humanists himself, Desiderius Erasmus. In Liber Antibarbarorum, Erasmus pillories the precious Christians who refuse to read pagan authors on account of their own squeamish consciences. In Education of a Christian Prince, and On the Education of Children, Erasmus gives principled arguments for humanistic education and practical advice for those responsible for carrying it out.

    Roland Bainton's Erasmus of Christendom: https://amzn.to/3v8NlTC

    Desiderius Erasmus' Praise of Folly: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780691165646

    Desiderius Erasmus' Education of a Christian Prince: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780521588119

    Luther and Erasmus: Free Will and Salvation: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780664241582

    Richard M. Gamble's The Great Tradition: https://amzn.to/3Q4lRnO

    Eric Adler on The New Thinkery: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/eric-adler-on-the-new-humanism/id1524739522?i=1000638422051

    New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/

    Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores.


    Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

  • "As only the Catholic and communist know, all education must be ultimately religious education." So argues T.S. Eliot in his essay "Modern Education and the Classics," in which he contrasts three different camps in the world of education: the radical, the liberal, and the orthodox. Eliot seems to say that the only hope for continued erudition in the Greek and Roman classics is a rebirth of Christendom. Jonathan and Ryan discuss Eliot's provocative thesis, along with the lessons he offers to would-be educational reformers.

    T.S. Eliot's Modern Education and the Classics: https://muse.jhu.edu/document/615

    T.S. Eliot's Selected Essays: https://amzn.to/3GD5mft

    Eric Adler's Humanistic Letters: https://amzn.to/41kvlSb

    John Peterson's College Is Too Late: https://americanmind.org/features/how-to-save-higher-education/college-is-too-late/

    Rod Dreher's The Benedict Option: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780735213302

    New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/

    Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores.

    Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

  • In The Greek State, Friedrich Nietzsche argues that the Greek polis existed in order to hold the many in slavery so that the Olympian few could give birth to the beautiful Helen known as Greek culture, and that the Greek state had to be periodically renewed by war so that it could continue to create geniuses. This, he says, is the esoteric meaning behind Plato's Republic. Jonathan and Ryan take a look at this "preface to an unwritten book" and examine the ethical, metaphysical, and historical implications of Nietzsche's argument.

    Friedrich Nietzsche's The Greek State: https://www.stephenhicks.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Nietzsche-Greek-State-text.pdf

    Jacob Burkhardt's The Greeks and Greek Civilization: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780312244477

    C.S. Lewis's Mere Christianity: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780060652920

    T.S. Eliot's Vergil and the Christian World: https://www.jstor.org/stable/27538181

    Jacob Burkhardt's The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy: https://amzn.to/49RKXk1

    New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/

    Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores.


    Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

  • Why was it that the Greeks, the most humane of all peoples, also possessed such a tigerish lust for blood? Why did the Greeks so delight in Homer's depiction of cruelty and death in the Iliad? That is the question animating Friedrich Nietzsche's preface to an unwritten book, "Homer's Contest." Nietzsche turns to the dark Hellenic past, the "womb of Homer" for an explanation, and finds it in Strife, the double-souled goddess lauded by Hesiod.

    Friedrich Nietzsche's Homer's Contest: http://www.northamericannietzschesociety.com/uploads/7/3/2/5/73251013/nietzscheana5.pdf

    Lee Fratantuono's Madness Unchained: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780739122426

    Robin Lane Fox's Homer and His Iliad: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9781541600447

    Hesiod's Theogony, Works and Days: https://amzn.to/467Nh3l

    Dan Carlin's Death Throes of the Republic: https://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-history-death-throes-of-the-republic-series/

    C.S. Lewis's Surprised by Joy: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780062565433

    Jacob Burkhardt's The Greeks and Greek Civilization: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780312244477

    René Girard's Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780804722155

    New Humanists episode on Simone Weil's "The Iliad, or the Poem of Force": https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-iliad-or-the-poem-of-force-episode-xxi/id1570296135?i=1000557727910

    New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/

    Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores.

    Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com