Mary Beard

In her now famous 'Timesonline' blog, Mary Beard has made her name as a wickedly subversive commentator on the world in which we live. Her central themes are classics, the universities and teaching, but there is much else besides. This selection will inform and provoke and cannot fail to entertain.

The ruins of Pompeii destroyed by Vesuvius in AD 79 offer the best evidence we have of life in the Roman empire. Mary Beard's notes rise to the challenge of making sense of its remains. What kind of town was it? What can it tell us about life then - from sex to politics, food to religion, slavery to literacy?

Britain's best-known classicist Mary Beard, is also a committed and vocal feminist. With wry wit, she revisits the gender agenda and shows how history has treated powerful women. Her examples range from the classical world to the modern day, from Medusa and Athena to Theresa May and Hillary Clinton.