Then & Now: The World's Center and the Soul's Demesne

These two long essays make up a short book, one full of depth and knowledge, in which Eva Brann gets at the roots of our thinking—without tearing things apart.

Then

In the first essay, Brann parses out the schema and meaning of Herodotus's The History (The Persian Wars). She writes that Herodotus worked by indirection. Giving a full account of the Persians and the peoples who constituted their empire—and whose empire encircled the Greeks (thus the "Greek center")—Herodotus delineates the esse...