Democracy : a life /

Cartledge, Paul

Democracy : a life / Paul Cartledge - New York : Oxford University Press, cop. 2016 - (383 p.)

Bibliogr. p. 333-361

"Ancient Greece first coined the concept of "democracy," yet almost every major ancient Greek thinker--from Plato and Aristotle onwards--were ambivalent or even hostile to democracy in any form. The explanation is quite simple: the elite perceived majority power as tantamount to a dictatorship of the proletariat. In ancient Greece there can be traced not only the rudiments of modern democratic society but the entire Western tradition of anti-democratic thought... "Democracy: A Life holds out three unique research aims: a proper understanding of the origins and variety of ancient Greek democracies; a detailed account of the fate of democracy - both the institution and the word - in the ancient Greek and Roman worlds from the fifth century BCE to the 6th century CE; and a nuanced exploration of the ways in which all ancient Greek democracies differed from all modern so-called 'democracies'"--

978-0-19-983745-8

321.80938