Starting from Scratch: The Life-Changing Lessons of Aeneas

From the international best-selling author of The Ingenious Language, a meditation on resistance and renewal that is at once a fascinating portrait of antiquity's most complex and surprisingly modern hero.

In times of peace and prosperity, one can turn to Homer to learn about life's joys and passions; to experience the thrill and terror of war; to seek adventure in distant lands. But what about when things go wrong? What do we do when we find ourselves at the center of a great epoch-defining upheaval? Then, writes Andrea Marcolongo, it's time to set the Iliad, the Odyssey, and every other classical text aside, and call upon Aeneas.

In this lucid, compelling work, Marcolongo shows how Virgil's epic poem is especially suited for our times of crisis and disorientation. In her fresh, nuanced portrayal, Aeneas emerges as a multiform, deeply human hero, one who feels close to us in his vulnerability and capacity for empathy. His journey of rebirth and rebuilding, from the ruins of Troy to the shores of Italy, holds many lessons for our present--chief among them that, even when all seems lost, through resilience and hope we can seek and find new beginnings.