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

by Eva Brann

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 essential difference between the Barbarians and the Greeks. This difference Brann calls Athens' "elusive essence," its freedom contrasting with the slavery upon which the Persian empire depended. Now In the second essay, the author delves into what it means for a person to unite a disposition toward conservatism with a capacity to reiterate and rehearse events, scenes, and dramas in "the conservatory of the imagination." To uncover the meanings and consequences of this union—this imaginative conservatism—and the type of soul to which it applies, Brann offers twelve perspectives, starting with "Temperamental Disposition" and ending with "Eccentric Centrality" (without ever explicitly focusing on politics). Join her and you'll find both delight and education. Eva Brann is a member of the senior faculty at St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland, where she has taught for fifty-seven years. She is a recipient of the National Humanities Medal. Her other books include Un-Willing ,  The Logos of Heraclitus , Feeling Our Feelings , Homage to Americans , Open Secrets / Inward Prospects , The Music of the Republic , and Homeric Moments (all published by Paul Dry Books).

138 pages, Paperback

First published April 7, 2015

About the author

Eva T. H. Brann was an American scholar, classicist, and the longest-serving tutor at St. John’s College in Annapolis. Born in Berlin in 1929 and later immigrating to the U.S., she earned degrees from Brooklyn College and Yale University. Brann devoted over six decades to teaching and writing, becoming a key figure in the Great Books tradition and serving as dean of St. John’s College.
Her wide-ranging works include Paradoxes of Education in a Republic, What, Then, Is Time?, and The Music of the Republic. She also co-translated several Platonic dialogues and received the National Humanities Medal in 2005. Brann passed away in 2024 at the age of 95, leaving behind a lasting legacy of intellectual rigor and philosophical inquiry.

Reviews

[Winston Elliott III · Rating 4 out of 5]

The wisdom of Eva Brann shines forth in this marvelous short book. Dr. Brann's description of Herodotus' "History" is also apt for for her book: "You would have to be pretty flat-souled not to be enchanted by Herodotus’s “history,” sometimes called The Persian Wars."

The second essay of this fine work, an essay defining Imaginative conservatism includes this gem: "As Socrates thinks that “the unexamined life is not lived,” meaning that nothing has properly happened until it has been tethered in reflection, so the imaginative conservative feels that the unimagined life has not eventuated, that nothing has come to pass until it has been reiterated, rehearsed in the conservatory of the IMAGINATION."

Read this book. Savor it. Immerse yourself in the wisdom of Eva Brann.