Intellectuals of the early modern period looked to the ancient past and its great books to reform the education and culture of their own time. But the “revival” of antiquity meant interpreting and reinterpreting that past in the context of a different era; and inevitably creating new versions of its history and teachings. Hanna Gray explores the tension between Renaissance humanism’s ideal of revival and its application to contemporary conditions.

Recorded Wednesday, December 03, 2008 at The Newberry Library.