Athens and Athenian Democracy

Athens and Athenian Democracy PDF Author: Robin Osborne
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521844215
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 483

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Book Description
This book constructs a distinctive view of classical Athens, a view which takes seriously the evidence of archaeology and of art history.

Athens and Athenian Democracy

Athens and Athenian Democracy PDF Author: Robin Osborne
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521844215
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 483

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Book Description
This book constructs a distinctive view of classical Athens, a view which takes seriously the evidence of archaeology and of art history.

Athenian Democracy at War

Athenian Democracy at War PDF Author: David Pritchard
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108422918
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 313

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Book Description
Studies all four branches of the Athenian armed forces to show how they helped make democratic Athens a superpower.

Athenian Democracy

Athenian Democracy PDF Author: Peter John Rhodes
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 9780195221404
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 382

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Book Description
Athens' democracy developed during the sixth and fifth centuries and continued into the fourth; Athens' defeat by Macedon in 322 began a series of alternations between democracy and oligarchy. The democracy was inseparably bound up with the ideals of liberty and equality, the rule of law, and the direct government of the people by the people. Liberty means above all freedom of speech, the right to be heard in the public assembly and the right to speak one's mind in private. Equality meant the equal right of male citizens (perhaps 60,000 in the fifth century, 30,000 in the fourth) to participate in the government of the state and the administration of the law. Disapproved of as a mob rule until the nineteenth century, the institutions of Athenian democracy have become an inspiration for modern democratic politics and political philosophy. P. J. Rhodes's reader focuses on the political institutions, political activity, history, and nature of Athenian democracy and introduces some of the best British, American, German, and French scholarship on its origins, theory, and practice. Part I is devoted to political institutions: citizenship, the assembly, the law-courts, and capital punishment. Part II explores aspects of political activity: the demagogues and their relationship with the assembly, the maneuverings of the politicians, competitive festivals, and the separation of public from private life. Part III looks at three crucial points in the development of the democracy: the reforms of Solon, Cleisthenes, and Ephialtes. Part IV considers what it was in Greek life that led to the development of democracy. Some of the authors adopt broad-brush approaches to major questions; others analyze a particular body of evidence in detail. Use is made of archeology, comparison with other societies, the location of festivals in their civic context, and the need to penetrate behind what the classical Athenians made of their past.

Democracy and Participation in Athens

Democracy and Participation in Athens PDF Author: R. K. Sinclair
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521423892
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
The public aspects of the lives of Athenian citizens (c. 450 to 322 BC.) are assessed to establish the nature and extent of citizen participation in the governing democracy of that period.

Democracy and Knowledge

Democracy and Knowledge PDF Author: Josiah Ober
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400828805
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 363

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Book Description
When does democracy work well, and why? Is democracy the best form of government? These questions are of supreme importance today as the United States seeks to promote its democratic values abroad. Democracy and Knowledge is the first book to look to ancient Athens to explain how and why directly democratic government by the people produces wealth, power, and security. Combining a history of Athens with contemporary theories of collective action and rational choice developed by economists and political scientists, Josiah Ober examines Athenian democracy's unique contribution to the ancient Greek city-state's remarkable success, and demonstrates the valuable lessons Athenian political practices hold for us today. He argues that the key to Athens's success lay in how the city-state managed and organized the aggregation and distribution of knowledge among its citizens. Ober explores the institutional contexts of democratic knowledge management, including the use of social networks for collecting information, publicity for building common knowledge, and open access for lowering transaction costs. He explains why a government's attempt to dam the flow of information makes democracy stumble. Democratic participation and deliberation consume state resources and social energy. Yet as Ober shows, the benefits of a well-designed democracy far outweigh its costs. Understanding how democracy can lead to prosperity and security is among the most pressing political challenges of modern times. Democracy and Knowledge reveals how ancient Greek politics can help us transcend the democratic dilemmas that confront the world today.

Democracy Beyond Athens

Democracy Beyond Athens PDF Author: Eric W. Robinson
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521843316
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 287

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Book Description
First full study of ancient Greek democracy in the Classical period outside Athens, which has three main goals: to identify where and when democratic governments established themselves; to explain why democracy spread to many parts of Greece; and to further our understanding of the nature of ancient democracy.

Ideology of Democratic Athens

Ideology of Democratic Athens PDF Author: Barbato Matteo Barbato
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
ISBN: 1474466451
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 340

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Book Description
Investigates the construction of democratic ideology in Classical Athens through a study of the social memory of Athens' mythical pastProposes a novel approach to Athenian democratic ideology that opens new frontiers of investigation in ancient history and the social sciencesThe introduction clearly sets out the aims and methodology of the book and its place within the scholarship in ancient history and the social sciencesFour case studies illuminate the impact of Athenian democratic institutions on ideology, myth, and the use of social memoryOffers a long-awaited new interpretation of the Athenian funeral oration for the war deadOffers clear overviews of Athenian democratic institutions (e.g., Assembly, Council, lawcourts) based on the most recent scholarshipProvides up-to-date overviews of several values in Greek thought (e.g., charis, hybris, eugeneia)The debate on Athenian democratic ideology has long been polarised around two extremes. A Marxist tradition views ideology as a cover-up for Athens' internal divisions. Another tradition, sometimes referred to as culturalist, interprets it neutrally as the fixed set of ideas shared by the members of the Athenian community. Matteo Barbato addresses this dichotomy by providing a unitary approach to Athenian democratic ideology. Analysing four different myths from the perspective of the New Institutionalism, he demonstrates that Athenian democratic ideology was a fluid set of ideas, values and beliefs shared by the Athenians as a result of a constant ideological practice influenced by the institutions of the democracy. He shows that this process entailed the active participation of both the mass and the elite and enabled the Athenians to produce multiple and compatible ideas about their community and its mythical past.

Origins of Democracy in Ancient Greece

Origins of Democracy in Ancient Greece PDF Author: Kurt A. Raaflaub
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520258096
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
"A balanced, high-quality analysis of the developing nature of Athenian political society and its relationship to 'democracy' as a timeless concept."—Mark Munn, author of The School of History

The Athenian Revolution

The Athenian Revolution PDF Author: Josiah Ober
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691217971
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 222

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Book 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.

Democracy in Classical Athens

Democracy in Classical Athens PDF Author: Christopher Carey
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1474286372
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 201

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Book Description
For two centuries classical Athens enjoyed almost uninterrupted democratic government. This was not a parliamentary democracy of the modern sort but a direct democracy in which all citizens were free to participate in the business of government. Throughout this period Athens was the cultural centre of Greece and one of the major Greek powers. This book traces the development and operation of the political system and explores its underlying principles. Christopher Carey assesses the ancient sources of the history of Athenian democracy and evaluates criticisms of the system, ancient and modern. He also provides a virtual tour of the political cityscape of ancient Athens, describing the main political sites and structures, including the theatre. With a new chapter covering religion in the democratic city, this second edition benefits from updates throughout that incorporate the latest research and recent archaeological findings in Athens. A clearer structure and layout make the book more accessible to students, as do extra images and maps along with a timeline of key events.