Download or read book Holding Up a Mirror written by Anne Glyn-Jones and published by Imprint Academic. This book was released on 1996 with total page 662 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The good news is: that faith in material goods really does bring prosperity to society. The bad news is: that self-same commitment to material things leads inexorably to the destruction of the civilizations it builds. Using theatre as a measure society's health, this book shows that Ancient Greece and Rome, Mediaeval Christendom and our own contemporary society all follow the same pattern: prosperity thrives on the conviction that the material world alone constitutes true 'reality'; but that very conviction leads to a rejection of the supernatural, undermines absolute moral standards, and leads to cultural and social disintegration.