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

Promotional Information

This book brings together some of Ober's most important essays of the last decade... Anyone who cares about democracy, ancient or modern, should read this book. -- Ian Morris, Stanford University By confronting critically an alien way of thinking, doing, and speaking politics that is nevertheless also the fountainhead of our own Western political tradition, Ober provides a wide range of readers with a truly unsettling and therefore properly educational experience. -- P. A. Cartledge, University of Cambridge

About the Author

Josiah Ober is the David Magie Professor of Ancient History in the Classics Department of Princeton University. He is the author of Political Dissent in Democratic Athens: Intellectual Critics of Popular Rule, Mass and Elite in Democratic Athens: Rhetoric, Ideology, and the Power of the People and Demokratia: A Conversation on Democracies, Ancient and Modern (all from Princeton).

Reviews

"The Athenian Revolution is a welcome collection... Interesting and witty introductions place the articles in personal and scholarly context."--Peter Krentz, Religious Studies Review "[Ober] has succeeded in writing a book that both political theorists and ancient historians will find always provocative and often persuasive. Highly recommended."--Choice "By confronting critically an alien way of thinking and doing and speaking about politics that is nevertheless also the fountainhead of our own Western political tradition, Ober provides a wide range of readers with a truly unsettling and therefore properly educational experience."--Paul Cartledge, New England Classical Journal