Of man’s first disobedience: is Adam helping Eve or trying to prevent her from grabbing the forbidden fruit in Titian’s Adam and Eve? (c 1550)
© TITIAN (TIZIANO VECELLIO) (C.1488-1576) / PRADO, MADRID, SPAIN / BRIDGEMAN IMAGES
The Rise and Fall of Adam & Eve
by Stephen Greenblatt (Bodley Head, £25)
The recent revelations of historical sexual abuse and harassment by men in powerful positions mean we are now thinking a lot harder about the relations between men and women. While Stephen Greenblatt’s new book is a reflection on the nature of storytelling in human history, rather than a polemical sally about male-female relations, it did make me consider how we might have got to the latest wave of gender trouble.