"Backing into the Future" encompasses the many lives of Bernard Knox - historian, literary critic and defender of the humanities - a man who has brought the classical world to life for the uninitiated reader and scholar alike. Opening with a group of essays on heroes and poets (exploring such topics as the character of Achilles and Ovid in exile), the book moves on to "Men, Gods and Cities" (essays ranging in subject from the Delphic Oracle to the trial of Socrates). Knox closes his collection with diverse reflections on the survival and transformation of the classics in the present age.