First published in 1981, this biography reappears at a time when Evans's reputation, briefly dented in the 1960s,_ seems once again to be climbing to a peak. He was 50 when he made his greatest "dig" in Crete, not only laying bare a forgotten city but also reviving a remarkable culture of the Ancient World. Evans was one of the last Great Victorians, erudite, volcanically energetic, a born leader, a self-publicist who nevertheless always justified his own publicity, a scholar, a dreamer and a man of action. Cretans have always been grateful to him, not only for disinterring their past, but for putting their island country back on the map culturally and for making Knossos one of the tourist magnets of the world. Lively and well written.
Buon Appetito, Your Holiness, The Secrets of the Papal Table, by Mariangela