Democracy

By: Paul Cartledge

Narrated by: Paul Hodgson

Length: 13 hrs and 32 mins

Publisher's Summary

Ancient Greece first coined the concept of democracy, yet almost every major ancient Greek thinker - from Plato and Aristotle onward - was ambivalent toward or even hostile to democracy in any form. The explanation for this is quite simple: The elite perceived majority power as tantamount to a dictatorship of the proletariat.

In ancient Greece, there can be traced not only the rudiments of modern democratic society but the entire Western tradition of antidemocratic thought. In Democracy, Paul Cartledge provides a detailed history of this ancient political system. In addition, by drawing out the salient differences between ancient and modern forms of democracy, he enables a richer understanding of both.

Cartledge contends that there is no one "ancient Greek democracy" as pure and simple as is often believed. Democracy surveys the emergence and development of Greek politics, the invention of political theory, and - intimately connected to the latter - the birth of democracy, first at Athens c. 500 BCE and then at its greatest flourishing in the Greek world 150 years later. Cartledge then traces the decline of genuinely democratic Greek institutions at the hands of the Macedonians and - subsequently and decisively - the Romans. Throughout, he sheds light on the variety of democratic practices in the classical world as well as on their similarities to and dissimilarities from modern democratic forms, from the American and French revolutions to contemporary political thought.

Authoritative and accessible, Cartledge's book will be regarded as the best account of ancient democracy and its long afterlife for many years to come.

©2016 Paul Cartledge (P)2016 Audible, Inc.

Choppy and mundane performance

This is a scholarly examination of democracy as applied to a system of government. Is a democracy such as in ancient Athens a viable system of government? Was a more representative democracy realistic? Or is an oligarchy, monarchy, autocratic government most feasible? Cartledge provides rich insights and critiques established scholarly authors. His references are rich and the bibliography is robust.

As to the Audible, sadly Paul Hodgson gives a choppy and mundane performance. His style of breaking down sentences as if he were reading verse, was extremely irritating and interfered with the flow and reading pleasure.

not what is described to be

don't get the book if you done specifically study the subject or are in super and I mean super love with historic events.

I expected more theory, more describing the concept of democracy but it seems more like a chronological book of democracy