Author: Ellen Meiksins Wood
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 1784781983
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 322
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Book Description
The controversial thesis at the center of this study is that, despite the importance of slavery in Athenian society, the most distinctive characteristic of Athenian democracy was the unprecedented prominence it gave to free labor. Wood argues that the emergence of the peasant as citizen, juridically and politically independent, accounts for much that is remarkable in Athenian political institutions and culture. From a survey of historical writings of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the focus of which distorted later debates, Wood goes on to take issue with recent arguments, such as those of G.E.M. de Ste Croix, about the importance of slavery in agricultural production. The social, political and cultural influence of the peasant-citizen is explored in a way which questions some of the most cherished conventions of Marxist and non-Marxist historiography.
Author: Ellen Meiksins Wood
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 1784781975
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 225
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Book Description
The controversial thesis at the center of this study is that, despite the importance of slavery in Athenian society, the most distinctive characteristic of Athenian democracy was the unprecedented prominence it gave to free labor. Wood argues that the emergence of the peasant as citizen, juridically and politically independent, accounts for much that is remarkable in Athenian political institutions and culture. From a survey of historical writings of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the focus of which distorted later debates, Wood goes on to take issue with influential arguments, such as those of G.E.M. de Ste Croix, about the importance of slavery in agricultural production. The social, political and cultural influence of the peasant-citizen is explored in a way which questions some of the most cherished conventions of Marxist and non-Marxist historiography.
Author: Thomas E. J. Wiedemann
Publisher: Classical Association
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 60
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Book Description
Author: Ellen Meiksins Wood
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 178168426X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 375
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Book Description
In this groundbreaking work, Ellen Meiksins Wood rewrites the history of political theory. She traces the development of the Western tradition from classical antiquity through to the Middle Ages in the perspective of social history-a significant departure not only from the standard abstract history of ideas but also from other contextual methods. Treating canonical thinkers as passionately engaged human beings, Wood examines their ideas not simply in the context of political languages but as creative responses to the social relations and conflicts of their time and place. She identifies a distinctive relation between property and state in Western history and shows how the canon, while largely the work of members or clients of dominant classes, was shaped by complex interactions among proprietors, labourers and states. Western political theory, Wodd argues, owes much of its vigour, and also many ambiguities, to these complex and often contradictory relations. From the Ancient Greek polis of Plato, Aristotle, Aeschylus and Sophocles, through the Roman Republic of Cicero and the Empire of St Paul and St Augustine, to the medieval world of Averroes, Thomas Aquinas and William of Ockham, Citizens to Lords offers a rich, dynamic exploration of thinkers and ideas that have indelibly stamped our modern world.
Author: Alex Gourevitch
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107033179
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 225
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Book Description
This book reconstructs how a group of nineteenth-century labor reformers appropriated and radicalized the republican tradition. These "labor republicans" derived their definition of freedom from a long tradition of political theory dating back to the classical republics. In this tradition, to be free is to be independent of anyone else's will - to be dependent is to be a slave. Borrowing these ideas, labor republicans argued that wage laborers were unfree because of their abject dependence on their employers. Workers in a cooperative, on the other hand, were considered free because they equally and collectively controlled their work. Although these labor republicans are relatively unknown, this book details their unique, contemporary, and valuable perspective on both American history and the organization of the economy.
Author: Ellen Meiksins Wood
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 1786630168
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 414
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Book Description
Historian and political thinker Ellen Meiksins Wood argues that theories of "postmodern" fragmentation, "difference", and contingency can barely accommodate the idea of capitalism, let alone subject it to critique. In this book she sets out to renew the critical programme of historical materialism by redefining its basic concepts and its theory of history in original and imaginative ways, using them to identify the specificity of capitalism as a system of social relations and political power. She goes on to explore the concept of democracy in both the ancient and modern world, examining its relation to capitalism, and raising questions about how democracy might go beyond the limits imposed on it.
Author: Deborah Kamen
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110654768
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 160
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Book Description
Slavery is attested throughout ancient Greek history and all over the Greek world. Unsurprisingly, then, scholarship on Greek slavery has proliferated in the past twenty-five or so years, making a holistic synthesis of such work especially desirable. This book offers a state-of-the-art guide to research on this subject, surveying recent scholarly trends and controversies and suggesting future directions for research. Topics include regional variation in slave systems; the economics of slavery; the treatment of enslaved people; sex and gender; agency, resistance, and revolt; manumission; and representations, metaphors, and legacies of Greek slavery. Readers, including those interested in slavery of other time periods, will find this book an essential resource in learning about key issues in Greek slavery studies or in pursuing their own research.
Author: Harriet I. Flower
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107032245
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 519
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Book Description
This second edition examines all aspects of Roman history, and contains a new introduction, three new chapters and updated bibliographies.
Author: Sara Forsdyke
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691140057
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 292
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Book Description
The author argues that various forms of popular culture in ancient Greece--including festival revelry, oral storytelling, and popular forms of justice--were a vital medium for political expression and played an important role in the negotiation of relations between elites and masses, as well as masters and slaves, in the Greek city-states. Although these forms of social life are only poorly attested in the sources, she suggests that Greek literature reveals traces of popular culture that can be further illuminated by comparison with later historical periods. By looking beyond institutional contexts, she recovers the ways that groups that were excluded from the formal political sphere--especially women and slaves--participated in the process by which society was ordered.
Author: Ellen Meiksins Wood
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 1844678164
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 258
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Book Description
In this groundbreaking work, Ellen Meiksins Wood lays out her innovative approach to the history of political theory and traces the development of the Western tradition from classical antiquity through the late Middle Ages. Her “social history” is a significant departure from other contextual interpretations. Treating canonical thinkers as passionately engaged human beings, Wood examines their ideas not simply in the context of political discourse but as creative responses to the social relations and conflicts of their time and place. From the Ancient Greek polis of Plato and Aristotle, through the Roman Republic of Cicero and the Empire of St. Paul and St. Augustine, to the medieval world of Averroes, Thomas Aquinas and William of Ockham, Citizens to Lords offers a rich, dynamic exploration of thinkers and ideas that have stamped their imprint upon history and the present day.
