Luciano Canfora

Luciano Canfora (Bari, Italy, 1942), a historian of the ancient world, philologist, and Professor of Classics at the University of Bari, is renowned for his thoroughgoing knowledge of classical culture, which he studies using a multidisciplinary approach. He has written several major works on ancient history as well as about contemporary issues. Besides teaching at the University of Bari, he is a member of the Institute for the Classical Tradition at Boston University (United States) and of the Gramsci Foundation Institute in Rome. He is editor of the journal Quaderni di Storia and also of the collection La città antica. His numerous, frequently provocative studies deal with many different spheres, from philology, history and historiography, to forms of conservation and transmission of knowledge, through to the survival of antiquity in contemporary culture and history. Among his books translated into Catalan or Spanish are La democracia, historia de una ideología (Crítica, 2004), which is published in English as Democracy in Europe: A History of an Ideology (2006, Wiley-Blackwell); Exportar la llibertat: el mite que ha fracassat (Exporting Freedom: The Myth That Failed, Publicacions de la Universitat de València, 2008; Akal, 2008); El viaje de Artemidoro (The Journey of Artemidorus, La esfera de los libros, 2011); Ideología de los estudios clásicos (The Ideology of Classical Studies, Akal, 2012); La historia falsa y otros escritos (False History and Other Writings, Capitán Swing, 2013); Julio César (Ariel, 2014), published in English as Julius Caesar: The Life and Times of a Dictator (2007, University of California Press); 1914 (El Viejo Topo, 2014), El copista como autor (The Copyist as Author, Delirio, 2014) and El mundo de Atenas (The World of Athens, Anagrama, 2014).