At the turn of the twentieth century, when the poet Ezra Pound advised writers to "make it new," he was referring to the need for a new vision that would propel artists through a new century. But as artists, intellectuals, writers, and other makers of culture turned to their crafts in order to create a new world, they found themselves looking to the past as much as they looked to the future. They looked not to the recent past, from which they wanted to free themselves, but to the ancient past of Greece and Rome. Homage to the Classical world sometimes manifested itself in the form of the toga party, which took place throughout the century and became particularly popular during the 1970s. Revising Classical culture to modern sensibilities, toga parties represented not only youthful exuberance, but an underlying desire to maintain a link to the...