In the past two decades, many scholars have displayed a renewed interest in the Sophists. Some, such as W.K.C. Guthrie, Richard Enos, G. B. Kerferd, John Poulakos, Jacqueline de Romilly, and Edward Schiappa, have examined the writings of the Sophists themselves, whereas others, such as Eric White, David Roochnik, Victor Vitanza, John Nelson, and Susan Jarrett, have examined ways in which the Sophists' views anticipate many of the ideas of contemporary thinkers. It is in this company that Mark Backman's Sophistication may be assessed, for he undertakes both to examine the views of the Sophists themselves and to show how their ideas inform our own "sophisticated" culture. Backman's propet is ambitious and worthwhile, one that could potentially have been a valuable contribution to an understanding of the Sophists and ourselves. Unfortunately, Backmans product is disappointing in that he presents a superficial and simplistic account both of the Sophists and of our own culture.

The superficiality of Backman's treatment of the Sophists is first signaled by his failure to discuss any specific statements made directly by the Sophists. Indeed, one suspects that Backman did not consult any actual writings by the Sophists, for in his bibliography he cites neither the Diels-Kranz collection of their extant writings nor its standard English translation edited by Rosemund Kent Sprague. Instead, Backman appears to have borrowed from the interpretations of the Sophists'remarks, advanced by other scholars, without ever acknowledging whose ideas he is iterating: throughout his entire book he does not provide a single footnote or reference to other scholars. A typical example of Backman's unsubstantiated assertions is that the Sophists' "message was simple and direct: 'You have the power to change your life. Every man is equal, none enjoys natural advantages' "(4). As the lively debates among such scholars as Guthrie, Kerferd, Enos, Poulakos, de Romilly, and Schiappa attest, whatever else may be said about the Sophists individually or as a group, their "message" was rarely "simple and direct." And whereas some of the Sophists may have maintained that some people may acquire the power to change their own lives, there is no written record of any Sophist asserting that nobody "enjoys natural advantages."

In another instance, Backman attributes to Gorgias the overtly contradictory view that "the waywardness of public opinion, then, is a fact beyond dispute and its existence alone proves that there is no such thing as the truth" (16). Because Backman seems never to have consulted Gorgias' own writings, it is understandable that he is unaware of Gorgias' assertion that "what is becoming . . . to a speech [is] truth" (Encomium for Helen 1) or that "I [must] discover something out of the truth itself and out of the present necessity" (Defense of Palamedes 4). Now one may argue that despite these assertions Gorgias rejects a particular conception of "truth," perhaps one that has been attributed to Plato, but for Backman simply to assert that Gorgias holds that there is "no such thing as truth" suggests that Backman has read neither Gorgias nor the extensive literature concerning Gorgias' epistemology.

If Backman's remarks about the Sophists are simplistic and unsubstantiated, his discussion of our own sophisticated culture seems equally superficial. Indeed, Backman seems to be oblivious to ongoing debates about the various topics he addresses-history, education, politics, ethics, aesthetics and the ways in which the views of many participants in these debates may be said to be elaborations on those of Gorgias, Protagoras, and other Sophists. Backman claims, for example, that "our view" of history is similar to views he attributes to the Sophists; yet he never even discusses the diverse "views" of history advanced by such thinkers as, say, Michel Foucault, Hans-Georg Gadamer, or Hayden White. Instead, Backman bases his conclusions on the "fact" that totalitarian governments corporations, politicians and lawyers tend to "invent" the past rather than attend to the facts themselves (49-53). In a discussion of education, Backman claims that we are self-conscious heirs to ideas concepts, methods, systems and strategies of learning that can be traced to ... the sophists" (95), yet he never refers to any of today's educational theorists or their energetic debates about pedagogical theory and practice. Again, Backman purports to trace contemporary aesthetics to its sophistic roots, but he seems completely unaware of the writings of such sophistic thinkers as Derrida, Paul de Man, Richard Rorty, Harold Bloom, or Stanley Fish. Rather than discussing the ideas of contemporary thinkers and situating his own views among them, Backman merely advances his own views of contemporary culture without factual substantiation or argument. Consequently, his pages are filled with assertions such as these:

Finally, it should be noted that Backman's book is marred by poor organization and style. Rather than stating his thesis clearly and proceeding to establish it, Backman presents seven often overlapping and highly repetitive essays. Moreover, in several of the essays, he digresses, to topics that seem more suited for other essays: In his discussion of aesthetics, for instance, he discusses matters that seem more directly related to education. Nor is his grammar much better, judging from such sentences as "The Athenians forgot Socrates [sic] lifelong service to her, in Plato's eyes, in order to satisfy an immediate pang for revenge" (68); "He lived in a world of natural phenomenon [sic] and it is no accident that he is credited with the development of the scientific method" (70); or "Ronald Reagan's great talent, to appear in command even when things are spinning out of control, is every politicians [sic] great challenge" (87). In a substantive and well-argued work, such errors might be excused as minor lapses; in this book, however, they betray a more pervasive carelessness. Derivative and simplistic in its account of Greek thinkers and contemporary culture, clumsy in its organization and style, Backman's book lacks the very quality it purports to examine: sophistication.