Wall Street Journal compares Ad Infinitum and Carpe Diem

The review is here.
A brief extract follows:

Both authors are British-born and Oxford-educated, and both engaging
writers. But their responses to declining Latinity are different. Mr.
Mount is cheerier. He is heartened that Latin “still blossoms today in
the oddest of places,” noting (inter alia) a Latin phrase tattooed on
Angelina Jolie's belly. Mr. Ostler, for his part, resigns himself to
the belief that Latin has little place in a world of “decidability,
radioactivity, plate tectonics.” His parting words are lugubrious: sic transit gloria mundi, “so the glory of the world must pass,” but he takes solace in the immortal glory of Latin.

Advertisements