Reclaiming Epicurus: Penguin Special

Epicureanism is not just for gourmands - journalist Luke Slattery argues that it can help us rethink out materialist ways and face the challenges of man-made climate change.

Rather than appealing to altruism, or calling for economic revolution, the Epicurean philosophy counsels that genuine happiness comes from the quieting of desire: from less, not more. And that might just be the mindset we need to rein in unsustainable development.

Could answers to the big questions faced in the twenty-first century be found on fragments of petrified scrolls in the Villa of the Papyri, buried along with Pompeii?