For nearly two centuries, the Western world was embroiled in a debate called, famously, the Querelle des Anciens et des Modernes. Set off unwittingly during a celebratory gathering of distinguished members of the Académie Française, it went on to involve all the greatest European intellectuals of the day-- Boileau, Voltaire, Dryden, Lessing—who took sides in the quarrel, culminating in Jonathan Swift's coup de grace, The Battle of the Books. The debate centered on the relative merits of what was called "modern". Thoughts and personages ascribed to the classical world were the "Ancients". Whomsoever dared question their—and with it the Past's--superiority over contemporary creation and thought were wreakers of havoc.

Beyond the 17th and 18th centuries, Levent Yilmaz shows in this entertaining and engaging book, how in fact the Querelle has never ended, but continues in debates on the Western canon that have roiled universities in recent decades, and in attempts to use "post-modern" and "post-post-modern" to identify trends and modes of thought.