Politics: Antiquity and Its Legacy

by Kostas Vlassopoulos

Ancient Greece is famous as the civilization which "gave" the world democracy. Democracy has in modern times become the rallying cry of liberation from supposed totalitarianism & dictatorship. It's embedded in the assumptions of Western powers who proclaim their faith in the global spread of democratic governance & at the same time wielded by protesters in the developing world who challenge what they view as the West's cultural imperialism. Thus, a lively & well informed treatment of the nexus between politics in antiquity & political discourse in the modern era is both timely & apposite. As Vlassopoulos shows, much can be learned about the practice of politics from a comparative discussion of the classical & the contemporary. His starting point is that the value of looking back to a political system with different assumptions & elements can help us think, even shape, what the future of modern politics might be. He discusses the contrasting political systems of Athens, Sparta & Rome; the political theories of thinkers like Plato, Aristotle & Cicero; how great events like the Peloponnesian War or the Roman civil wars shaped the course of political theory; & the discovery of freedom, participation & equality as political values in antiquity. Above all, the book shows how important & surprising an analysis of the ancient world can be in reassessing modern political debates.

Genres: History

190 pages, Paperback

First published October 23, 2009

Reviews

[Erik Graff · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received this book to review it for Ancient World, the journal of the Ares Press. A copy of this review is given as the description of the book as it tends to be objectively descriptive.

It is hard to know how to classify this book. The author is an historian of ancient Greece and this study might be construed as both a history of political thought and practice there and in the Roman Republic as well as of the (mis)appropriation of such in more modern times, but it could also be put under a either political science or political philosophy rubric.

As a scholarly work, this book is neither thorough nor convincing. It lacks in breadth, covering, so far as antiquity goes, only Lycourgan Sparta, the Athenian democracy and the Roman Republic--and then only very sketchily. It lacks in depth, statements of "fact" being made without adequate coverage of all the available sources and without criticism of them.

But it is not a scholarly book. Its intended audience would seem to be college professors teaching in the fields of classics, ancient history, political science or philosophy looking for quickly readable books suitable for a class unit about politics. Here the book would serve as a starting point for discussions and debates.

[Annas Jiwa Pratama · Rating 4 out of 5]

The life of ancient Athenians, Spartans, and Romans may as well be as morally alien to us as actual aliens from some obscure planet in an episode of Star Trek. One may ask what good can one possibly attain from reading about the political systems of dead civilizations that practices slavery, murders people and animals for entertainment, and regularly shifts between near complete chaos and absolute despotism. The author of this book rightly quotes J. S. Mill:

"Notwithstanding the defects of the social system and moral ideas of antiquity, the practice of dicastery and ecclesia raised the intellectual standard of an average Athenian citizen far beyond anything of which there is yet an example in any other mass of men, ancient or modern."

[Jonathan · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent introduction to the reception and permutations of ancient political thought. The collection of 4 essays is extremely well written and chock full of insight for the layman (such as myself) or the seasoned academic. The author makes many fascinating points, never straying far from the narrative but providing "vistas" into other areas of inquiry.