The Athenian revolution : essays on ancient Greek democracy and political theory
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Bibliographic Information
The Athenian revolution : essays on ancient Greek democracy and political theory
Princeton University Press, c1996
- pbk.
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Note
Includes bibliographical references (p. [189]-204) and index
Description and Table of Contents
- Volume
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pbk. ISBN 9780691001906
Description
Where did "democracy" come from, and what was its original form and meaning? Here Josiah Ober shows that this "power of the people" crystallized in a revolutionary uprising by the ordinary citizens of Athens in 508-507 B.C. He then examines the consequences of the development of direct democracy for upper-and lower-class citizens, for dissident Athenian intellectuals, and for those who were denied citizenship under the new regime (women, slaves, resident foreigners), as well as for the general development of Greek history. When the citizens suddenly took power into their own hands, they changed the cultural and social landscape of Greece, thereby helping to inaugurate the Classical Era. Democracy led to fundamental adjustments in the basic structures of Athenian society, altered the forms and direction of political thinking, and sparked a series of dramatic reorientations in international relations. It quickly made Athens into the most powerful Greek city-state, but it also fatally undermined the traditional Greek rules of warfare.
It stimulated the development of the Western tradition of political theorizing and encouraged a new conception of justice that has striking parallels to contemporary theories of rights. But Athenians never embraced the notions of inherency and inalienability that have placed the concept of rights at the center of modern political thought. Thus the play of power that constituted life in democratic Athens is revealed as at once strangely familiar and desperately foreign, and the values sustaining the Athenian political community as simultaneously admirable and terrifying.
Table of Contents
AcknowledgmentsCh. 1Introduction: Athenian Democracy and the History of Ideologies3Ch. 2Models and Paradigms in Ancient History13Ch. 3Public Speech and the Power of the People in Democratic Athens18Ch. 4The Athenian Revolution of 508/7 B.C.: Violence, Authority, and the Origins of Democracy32Ch. 5The Rules of War in Classical Greece53Ch. 6Thucydides, Pericles, and the Strategy of Defense72Ch. 7Power and Oratory in Democratic Athens: Demosthenes 21, Against Meidias86Ch. 8The Nature of Athenian Democracy107Ch. 9The Athenians and Their Democracy123Ch. 10How to Criticize Democracy in Late Fifth- and Fourth-Century Athens140Ch. 11The Polis as a Society: Aristotle, John Rawls, and the Athenian Social Contract161Bibliography189Index205
- Volume
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ISBN 9780691010953
Description
Where did "democracy" come from, and what was its original form and meaning? Here Josiah Ober shows that this "power of the people" crystallized in a revolutionary uprising by the ordinary citizens of Athens in 508-507 B.C. He the examines the consequences of the development of direct democracy for upper- and lower-class citizens, for dissident Athenian intellectuals and for those who were denied citizenship under the new regime (women, slaves, resident foreigners), as well as for the general development of Greek history. When the citizens suddenly took power into their own hands, they changed the cultural and social landscape of Greece, thereby helping to inaugurate the Classical Era. Democracy led to fundamental adjustments in the basic structures of Athenian society, altered the forms and direction of political thinking and sparked a series of dramatic reorientations in international relations. It quickly made Athens into the most powerful Greek city-state, but it also fatally undermined the traditional Greek rules of warfare.
It stimulated the development of the Western tradition of political theorizing and encouraged a new conception of justice that has striking parallels to contemporary theories of rights. But Athenians never embraced the notions of inherency and inalienability that have placed the concept of rights at the centre of modern political thought. Thus the play of power that constituted life in democratic Athens is revealed as at once strangely familiar and desperately foreign, and the values sustaining the Athenian political community as simultaneously admirable and terrifying.
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