Sport, Democracy and War in Classical Athens

Sport, Democracy and War in Classical Athens PDF Author: David Pritchard
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 110700733X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 265

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Book Description
This book explains why the democracy of classical Athens generously sponsored elite sport and idolised its sporting victors.

Sport, Democracy and War in Classical Athens

Sport, Democracy and War in Classical Athens PDF Author: David Pritchard
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 110700733X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 265

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book explains why the democracy of classical Athens generously sponsored elite sport and idolised its sporting victors.

Sport, Democracy and War in Classical Athens

Sport, Democracy and War in Classical Athens PDF Author: Senior Lecturer David M Pritchard
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781139776363
Category : HISTORY
Languages : en
Pages : 266

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Book Description
Explains why the democracy of classical Athens generously sponsored elite sport and idolised its sporting victors.

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.

War, Democracy and Culture in Classical Athens

War, Democracy and Culture in Classical Athens PDF Author: David Pritchard
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521190339
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 479

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Book Description
Analyses how the democracy of the classical Athenians revolutionized military practices and underwrote their unprecedented commitment to war-making.

Athenian Democracy at War

Athenian Democracy at War PDF Author: David Pritchard
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781108525572
Category : Athens (Greece)
Languages : en
Pages : 287

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Book Description
Classical Athens perfected direct democracy. The plays of this ancient Greek state are still staged today. These achievements are rightly revered. Less well known is the other side of this success story. Democratic Athens completely transformed warfare and became a superpower. The Athenian armed forces were unmatched in size and professionalism. This book explores the major reasons behind this military success. It shows how democracy helped the Athenians to be better soldiers. For the first time David M. Pritchard studies, together, all four branches of the armed forces. He focuses on the background of those who fought Athens' wars and on what they thought about doing so. His book reveals the common practices that Athens used right across the armed forces and shows how Athens' pro-war culture had a big impact on civilian life. The book puts the study of Athenian democracy at war on an entirely new footing.

Public Spending and Democracy in Classical Athens

Public Spending and Democracy in Classical Athens PDF Author: David M. Pritchard
Publisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 029277205X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 161

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Book Description
In his On the Glory of Athens, Plutarch complained that the Athenian people spent more on the production of dramatic festivals and “the misfortunes of Medeas and Electras than they did on maintaining their empire and fighting for their liberty against the Persians.” This view of the Athenians’ misplaced priorities became orthodoxy with the publication of August Böckh’s 1817 book Die Staatshaushaltung der Athener [The Public Economy of Athens], which criticized the classical Athenian dēmos for spending more on festivals than on wars and for levying unjust taxes to pay for their bloated government. But were the Athenians’ priorities really as misplaced as ancient and modern historians believed? Drawing on lines of evidence not available in Böckh’s time, Public Spending and Democracy in Classical Athens calculates the real costs of religion, politics, and war to settle the long-standing debate about what the ancient Athenians valued most highly. David M. Pritchard explains that, in Athenian democracy, voters had full control over public spending. When they voted for a bill, they always knew its cost and how much they normally spent on such bills. Therefore, the sums they chose to spend on festivals, politics, and the armed forces reflected the order of the priorities that they had set for their state. By calculating these sums, Pritchard convincingly demonstrates that it was not religion or politics but war that was the overriding priority of the Athenian people.

Sport and Democracy in the Ancient and Modern Worlds

Sport and Democracy in the Ancient and Modern Worlds PDF Author: Paul Christesen
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139576798
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 329

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Book Description
This book explores the relationship between sport and democratization. Drawing on sociological and historical methodologies, it provides a framework for understanding how sport affects the level of egalitarianism in the society in which it is played. The author distinguishes between horizontal sport, which embodies and fosters egalitarian relations, and vertical sport, which embodies and fosters hierarchical relations. Christesen also differentiates between societies in which sport is played and watched on a mass scale and those in which it is an ancillary activity. Using ancient Greece and nineteenth-century Britain as case studies, Christesen analyzes how these variables interact and finds that horizontal mass sport has the capacity to both promote and inhibit democratization at a societal level. He concludes that horizontal mass sport tends to reinforce and extend democratization.

Athletics in Ancient Athens

Athletics in Ancient Athens PDF Author: Donald G. Kyle
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9789004097599
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 280

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Book Description


Mass and Elite in Democratic Athens

Mass and Elite in Democratic Athens PDF Author: Josiah Ober
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400820510
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 409

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Book Description
This book asks an important question often ignored by ancient historians and political scientists alike: Why did Athenian democracy work as well and for as long as it did? Josiah Ober seeks the answer by analyzing the sociology of Athenian politics and the nature of communication between elite and nonelite citizens. After a preliminary survey of the development of the Athenian "constitution," he focuses on the role of political and legal rhetoric. As jurymen and Assemblymen, the citizen masses of Athens retained important powers, and elite Athenian politicians and litigants needed to address these large bodies of ordinary citizens in terms understandable and acceptable to the audience. This book probes the social strategies behind the rhetorical tactics employed by elite speakers. A close reading of the speeches exposes both egalitarian and elitist elements in Athenian popular ideology. Ober demonstrates that the vocabulary of public speech constituted a democratic discourse that allowed the Athenians to resolve contradictions between the ideal of political equality and the reality of social inequality. His radical reevaluation of leadership and political power in classical Athens restores key elements of the social and ideological context of the first western democracy.

A War Like No Other

A War Like No Other PDF Author: Victor Davis Hanson
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
ISBN: 0812969707
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 418

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Book Description
One of our most provocative military historians, Victor Davis Hanson has given us painstakingly researched and pathbreaking accounts of wars ranging from classical antiquity to the twenty-first century. Now he juxtaposes an ancient conflict with our most urgent modern concerns to create his most engrossing work to date, A War Like No Other. Over the course of a generation, the Hellenic city-states of Athens and Sparta fought a bloody conflict that resulted in the collapse of Athens and the end of its golden age. Thucydides wrote the standard history of the Peloponnesian War, which has given readers throughout the ages a vivid and authoritative narrative. But Hanson offers readers something new: a complete chronological account that reflects the political background of the time, the strategic thinking of the combatants, the misery of battle in multifaceted theaters, and important insight into how these events echo in the present. Hanson compellingly portrays the ways Athens and Sparta fought on land and sea, in city and countryside, and details their employment of the full scope of conventional and nonconventional tactics, from sieges to targeted assassinations, torture, and terrorism. He also assesses the crucial roles played by warriors such as Pericles and Lysander, artists, among them Aristophanes, and thinkers including Sophocles and Plato. Hanson’s perceptive analysis of events and personalities raises many thought-provoking questions: Were Athens and Sparta like America and Russia, two superpowers battling to the death? Is the Peloponnesian War echoed in the endless, frustrating conflicts of Vietnam, Northern Ireland, and the current Middle East? Or was it more like America’s own Civil War, a brutal rift that rent the fabric of a glorious society, or even this century’s “red state—blue state” schism between liberals and conservatives, a cultural war that manifestly controls military policies? Hanson daringly brings the facts to life and unearths the often surprising ways in which the past informs the present. Brilliantly researched, dynamically written, A War Like No Other is like no other history of this important war.