Democracy: A Life - Couverture rigide

Cartledge, Paul

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 0199697671 ISBN 13 : 9780199697670

Editeur : Oxford University Press, 2016

A propos du livre

Revue de presse

The huge value of Cartledges book is the reminder that 2016 is merely a way-stop on a very long journey indeed. (Tom Holland, The Guardian)

Thanks to Cartledge, Athenian democracy feels more vital than it has done for decades. It is a belter of a book. (Peter Thonemann, Books of the Year 2016, Times Literary Supplement)

Paul Cartledge subtitles his new study Democracy (Oxford) A Life, and was right to do so ... The clarity and zest with which he pursues his Snark-like quarry, the breadth and variety of his reading, and his cheerful persistence against odds (matching that of his subject) combine to make this an unexpectedly enjoyable page-turner. (Peter Green, Books of the Year 2016, Times Literary Supplement)

If you only ever buy one book on the history of democracy, make it this one. In this study, Paul Cartledge offers a thrilling account, based on his near legendarycourse of lectures at Cambridge, of why it matters more than ever to us today. (Edith Hall, History Today)

No library should be without this wonderful book, in which Cartledge has abundantly shared his love and knowledge of ancient Greece with us. (Kirkus Reviews)

A stimulating biography of democracy, both in theory and in all its practical manifestations ... also a thoughtful response to those scholars, such as Amartya Sen, who argue that democracy is not 'a quintessentially Western idea'. Cartledge's analysis suggests that it is just that. (Classics for All)

a nuanced account of the meanings and meanderings of democracy. An expert in ancient history, Cartledge spends most of his time looking at the emergence of democratic ideas in Greece, but his studies of democracy's "demise" under the Roman and Byzantine empires and its "eclipse" in medieval Europe are equally well-wrought. (Catholic Herald)

Cartledge provides this tour of ancient Greek democracy with the expertise that has made him an internationally recognized authority in classical history, and he does so with a literary grace that makes his presentation of classical and modern democracy inviting, engaging, and accessible. This is true for both the academic specialist, who will want this compact scholarly reference at their fingertips, and the broader public, especially those who are interested, in the words of one reader, in 'building a more democratic future.' (Bernard J. Dobski, Society)

Indian secularists need to read Democracy: A Life, a delightful whistle-stop tour of ancient Greece, and ponder their position and arguments on the seperation of state and religion. (Parsa Venkateshwar Rao Jr, DNA India)

Democracy: A Life is a magisterial and moving account of the fate of democracy, understood as the rule of the masses and political empowerment of the poor, on the basis of some workable definition of freedom and equality. In an easy, graceful style with flashes of revelatory personal expression, Paul Cartledge deploys his stunning mastery of several millennia of human history and deep knowledge of decades of scholarship to bring ancient democracy and its critics, modern as well as ancient, vividly to life. (Danielle Allen, author of Our Declaration: A Reading of the Declaration of Independence in Defense of Equality)

Présentation de l'éditeur

Democracy is either aspired to as a goal or cherished as a birthright by billions of people throughout the world today - and has been for over a century. But what does it mean? And how has its meaning changed since it was first coined in ancient Greece? Democracy: A Life is a biography of the concept, looking at its many different manifestations and showing how it has changed over its long life, from ancient times right through to the present. For instance, how did the 'people power' of the Athenians emerge in the first place? Once it had emerged, what enabled it to survive? And how did the Athenian version of democracy differ from the many other forms that developed among the myriad cities of the Greek world? Paul Cartledge answers all these questions and more, following the development of ancient political thinking about democracy from the sixth century BC onwards, not least the many arguments that were advanced against it over the centuries. As Cartledge shows, after a golden age in the fourth century BC, there was a long, slow degradation of the original Greek conception and practice of democracy, from the Hellenistic era, through late Republican and early Imperial Rome, down to early Byzantium in the sixth century CE. For many centuries after that, from late Antiquity, through the Middle Ages, to the Renaissance, democracy was effectively eclipsed by other forms of government, in both theory and practice. But as we know, this was by no means the end of the story. For democracy was eventually to enjoy a re-florescence, over two thousand years after its first flowering in the ancient world: initially revived in seventeenth century England, it was to undergo a further renaissance in the revolutionary climate of late eighteenth century North America and France - and has been constantly reconstituted and reinvented ever since.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Oxford University Press
• Date d'édition: 2016
• ISBN 10: 0199697671
• ISBN 13: 9780199697670
• Reliure: Cartonné
• Langue: anglais
• Nombre de pages: 412