Here are 100 books that Pericles Of Athens And The Birth Of Democracy fans have personally recommended if you like
Pericles Of Athens And The Birth Of Democracy.
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I first visited ancient Greece as an undergraduate. Homer and Plato seemed to speak directly to me, addressing my deepest questions. How do you live a good life? What should you admire? What should you avoid? Frustrated by English translations (each offers a different interpretation), I learned to read ancient Greek and then Latin. In college and then graduate school, I came to know Homer, Plato, Aeschylus, Cicero, Ovid, and many others in their own words. The ancient Greeks and Romans faced the same existential struggles and anxieties as we do. By precept, example, and counter-example, they remind me of humanity’s best tools: discernment, deliberation, empathy, generosity.
Jerry Pollitt was another professor and inspiring mentor to me in graduate school.
In graceful, accessible prose, Pollitt traces the development of Classical Greek art (c. 480-322 BCE) as it intersects with Greek history, philosophy, and literature. Identifying potent interactions between art, culture, and political thought, this book offers a useful paradigm for understanding how these reciprocal influences shape our attitudes and aspirations still.
An account of the development of Greek art in the Classical period (about 480-320 BC) which places particular emphasis on the meaning and content of Greek sculpture, architecture and painting. Professor Pollitt reminds us that the visual arts in Greece, as elsewhere, were primarily vehicles of expression. He does not ignore formal development but always relates this to social and cultural history, which it reflected and from which it grew. While his subject is art, he refers frequently to the literature and philosophy of the period which were shaped by the same influences.
I first visited ancient Greece as an undergraduate. Homer and Plato seemed to speak directly to me, addressing my deepest questions. How do you live a good life? What should you admire? What should you avoid? Frustrated by English translations (each offers a different interpretation), I learned to read ancient Greek and then Latin. In college and then graduate school, I came to know Homer, Plato, Aeschylus, Cicero, Ovid, and many others in their own words. The ancient Greeks and Romans faced the same existential struggles and anxieties as we do. By precept, example, and counter-example, they remind me of humanity’s best tools: discernment, deliberation, empathy, generosity.
As a cancer survivor and bone marrow transplant recipient, I found this book enormously helpful personally as well as professionally.
Drawing on his experience as a theater director producing ancient Greek tragedies for survivors of war, addiction, natural disasters, and other calamities, Doerries brings these ancient plays to life for contemporary audiences. His moving, personal, generous account – part memoir, part philosophical exploration – eloquently exposes the value of Greek tragedy for coping with trauma and tragedy today.
This is the personal and deeply passionate story of a life devoted to reclaiming the timeless power of an ancient artistic tradition to comfort the afflicted. For years, theater director Bryan Doerries has led an innovative public health project that produces ancient tragedies for current and returned soldiers, addicts, tornado and hurricane survivors, and a wide range of other at-risk people in society.
Drawing on these extraordinary firsthand experiences, Doerries clearly and powerfully illustrates the redemptive and therapeutic potential of this classical, timeless art: how, for example, Ajax can help soldiers and their loved ones better understand and grapple with…
I first visited ancient Greece as an undergraduate. Homer and Plato seemed to speak directly to me, addressing my deepest questions. How do you live a good life? What should you admire? What should you avoid? Frustrated by English translations (each offers a different interpretation), I learned to read ancient Greek and then Latin. In college and then graduate school, I came to know Homer, Plato, Aeschylus, Cicero, Ovid, and many others in their own words. The ancient Greeks and Romans faced the same existential struggles and anxieties as we do. By precept, example, and counter-example, they remind me of humanity’s best tools: discernment, deliberation, empathy, generosity.
Osgood details the ancient version of a phenomenon we may recognize: a cold-blooded grift by a charismatic, lawless, leader transmuted into terrorism while posing as patriotism.
Detailing the violent conspiracy of L. Sergius Catilina (63 BCE), Osgood’s elegant translation of Sallust’s The War Against Catiline (c. 43 BCE) emphasizes the danger that political violence and intimidation pose to communal welfare and stability. The Romans never found the recipe for combining individual freedom with equality and political harmony. (Rome’s 450-year-old Republic ultimately devolved into civil war and autocracy.)
Sallust’s tale and Rome’s experience caution us against preserving inequities even as we seek to preserve the rule of law.
An energetic new translation of an ancient Roman masterpiece about a failed coup led by a corrupt and charismatic politician
In 63 BC, frustrated by his failure to be elected leader of the Roman Republic, the aristocrat Catiline tried to topple its elected government. Backed by corrupt elites and poor, alienated Romans, he fled Rome while his associates plotted to burn the city and murder its leading politicians. The attempted coup culminated with the unmasking of the conspirators in the Senate, a stormy debate that led to their execution, and the defeat of Catiline and his legions in battle. In…
I first visited ancient Greece as an undergraduate. Homer and Plato seemed to speak directly to me, addressing my deepest questions. How do you live a good life? What should you admire? What should you avoid? Frustrated by English translations (each offers a different interpretation), I learned to read ancient Greek and then Latin. In college and then graduate school, I came to know Homer, Plato, Aeschylus, Cicero, Ovid, and many others in their own words. The ancient Greeks and Romans faced the same existential struggles and anxieties as we do. By precept, example, and counter-example, they remind me of humanity’s best tools: discernment, deliberation, empathy, generosity.
As a Classics professor, I rejoiced at Zuckerberg’s ability to insert rationality and fact into the often bad-faith debate swirling in universities and online regarding the value today of ancient Greek and Roman languages and literature.
Concentrating primarily on Roman sources, Zuckerberg critiques on-line distortions and misappropriation of Classical texts intended to promote misogyny and white supremacy.
A disturbing expose of how today's alt-right men's groups use ancient sources to promote a new brand of toxic masculinity online.
A virulent strain of antifeminism is thriving online that treats women's empowerment as a mortal threat to men and to the integrity of Western civilization. Its proponents cite ancient Greek and Latin texts to support their claims-arguing that they articulate a model of masculinity that sustained generations but is now under siege.
Donna Zuckerberg dives deep into the virtual communities of the far right, where men lament their loss of power and privilege, and strategize about how to reclaim…
Rob is an Assistant Professor of Politics and Public Administration at Ryerson University and a former congressional speechwriter. His forthcoming book, Word on Fire: Eloquence and Its Conditions is under contract with Cambridge University Press. He’s published research in journals including the American Political Science Review, the Review of Politics, and History of Political Thought. He has also written for publications including Slate, The Atlantic, and Aeon. Jimmy is an award-winning author and ghostwriter. With Rob, he published a Mind at Play: How Claude Shannon Invented the Information Age. The book won the 2017 Neumann Prize, awarded by the British Society for the History of Mathematics for the best book on the history of mathematics for a general audience. Jimmy’s writing and commentary have appeared in the Washington Examiner, the New York Observer, Forbes, and The Atlantic, among many other outlets.
When we were first figuring out how to write our biography of Cato, Everitt's work on Cicero was our go-to guide. It doesn't simply cover in fascinating detail the key events from the end of the Roman Republic--it's a model of how to bring an ancient figure to life, situating Cicero in the midst of the all-too-modern political controversies that shaped his life.
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • “An excellent introduction to a critical period in the history of Rome. Cicero comes across much as he must have lived: reflective, charming and rather vain.”—The Wall Street Journal
“All ages of the world have not produced a greater statesman and philosopher combined.”—John Adams
He squared off against Caesar and was friends with young Brutus. He advised the legendary Pompey on his botched transition from military hero to politician. He lambasted Mark Antony and was master of the smear campaign, as feared for his wit as he was for his ruthless disputations. Brilliant, voluble, cranky, a genius…
I love historical fiction because it’s the next best thing to the invention of time travel. Books can immerse you in a time and a place in a way that comics and movies can only gesture at. For books likeNever SleepI even make sure to cook the foods my characters are eating, to make sure the era is evoked for the readers in all five sense.I love fantasy and science fiction as the next person, but the idea of transporting people to times and placesthat actually happened, to the best of my skill as a dramatist and researcher, is a challenge I find irresistible as an author.
Strap on your toga, Watsonus, the game is afoot…or something like that.
Who needs Consulting Detective when you’ve got the literal inventor of logic on the case? The ancient Greek philosopher gets drawn into a messy case of murder defending the family of a former student.
I read this just after coming back from Athens—I wish I had it while I was there to compare the mentions in the text to real-life sites!
Athens, 332BC - an unhappy city under the rule of the Macedonian 'barbarian' Alexander the Great. In the midst of this unrest, Boutades, an eminent citizen, is found brutally murdered. Suspicion falls heavily on young Philemon, and, by Athenian law, his cousin Stephanos is elected to defend his name in court. In desperation, Stephanos seeks assistance from Aristotle, his former mentor - and Aristotle turns Detective. The young, inexperienced boy and the great philosopher form a classically uneven partnership. Their efforts culminate in the gripping trial scene when Stephanos uses all the powers of rhetoric and oratory instilled in him…
I was only thirteen when I first travelled to Greece and began to learn the ancient Greek language at school. That double impression of a vibrant, living country and its people, and the extraordinary fact that there they still speak a language that was first written down more than 3000 years ago, set me upon a lifetime of studying and teaching, and inspired me to communicate my love of Greece and Greeks to others. I’ve written several books, all of them Greek-themed in one way or another. These are some of the books that have accompanied me along the way – and new ones that may inspire you too.
Athens is where I lived as a student in the 1970s, and I’ve loved the place ever since! People who visit Greece often miss out on the capital or find the modern city ugly and noisy. But this book explains the magic effect that Athens has exercised on natives and visitors for at least two thousand years – all the way from the legendary wisdom of Solon the lawgiver to the gritty problems of a decade of enforced austerity (only recently overcome), and of a new multi-culturalism that comes with mass migration across Europe’s front line into Greece.
A sweeping narrative history of Athens, telling the three-thousand-year story of the birthplace of Western civilization.
Even on the most smog-bound of days, the rocky outcrop on which the Acropolis stands is visible above the sprawling roof-scape of the Greek capital. Athens presents one of the most recognizable and symbolically potent panoramas of any of the world's cities: the pillars and pediments of the Parthenon – the temple dedicated to Athena, goddess of wisdom, that crowns the Acropolis – dominate a city whose name is synonymous for many with civilization itself.
My Democracybook was the summation of my views to that date (2018) on the strengths and weaknesses of democracy as a political system, in both its ancient and its modern forms. I’d been an activist and advocate of democracy since my undergraduate days (at Oxford, in the late 1960s – interesting times!). As I was writing the book the world of democracy suddenly took unexpected, and to me undesirable turns, not least in the United States and my own U.K. An entire issue of an English-language Italian political-philosophy journal was devoted to the book in 2019, and in 2021 a Companionto the reception of Athenian democracy in subsequent epochs was dedicated to me.
I have collaborated with Bettany over many years—in her scholarly documentary filmmaking, including programmes on Socrates of Athens (469-399). Socrates never wrote or published in written form a word of his philosophy, yet through his immediate and succeeding disciples (above all Plato and Aristotle) has been hugely influential. But was he a democrat, as his fellow Athenians understood that term? In 399 a jury of 501 of his peers, chosen randomly by lot, delivered their resounding—negative—verdict, and condemned him to death by hemlock poison for being undemocratically irreligious and for teaching his pupils undemocratic values. Plato violently disagreed, and the debate over Socrates has continued ever since. Since it can be made to appear that he was convicted by an illiberal jury on grounds of his use of (democratic) freedom of speech, his condemnation has often been used as a stick to beat the ‘tyranny of…
We think the way we do because Socrates thought the way he did; in his unwavering commitment to truth and in the example of his own life, he set the standard for all subsequent Western philosophy. And yet, for twenty-five centuries, he has remained an enigma: a man who left no written legacy and about whom everything we know is hearsay, gleaned from the writings of Plato, Xenophon and Aristophanes. Now Bettany Hughes gives us an unprecedented, brilliantly vivid portrait of Socrates and of his homeland, Athens in its Golden Age.
His life spanned “seventy of the busiest, most wonderful…
I wrote my first thriller at age 8 about a girl who ran away and joined the circus. For later works, I, a pediatric physician, did opt to follow my English teachers’ guidance to write about what you know, including science, medicine, psychology, journalism, and my twin home countries of America and Greece. As YS Pascal, I wrote the Zygan Emprise Trilogy, which blended ancient Greek history, mythology, and literature. As Linda Reid, I co-authored the award-winning Sammy Greene thriller series with Dr. Deborah Shlian and was eager to fly investigative reporter Sammy and her ex-cop friend Gus Pappajohn to the shores of modern Athens to solve an ancient and modern mystery.
As an author of mystery-thrillers, including the Sherlock Holmes Pastiche, “Elementary, My Dear Spock” as well as a longtime fan of Agatha Christie, I was drawn to the appeal of an ancient Greek “detective”, Heracles Pontor investigating murders in Plato’s Athens. And, Somoza does not disappoint, inviting us to share Pontor’s journey down a rabbit hole that grows ever more intriguing and dangerous page by page. Somoza welcomes us with a beautifully translated murder mystery that soon envelopes us in a fascinating exploration of Plato, reality, and, as reflected in the original Spanish title, the Cave of Ideas.
THE ATHENIAN MURDERS is a brilliant, very entertaining and absolutely original literary mystery, revolving round two intertwined riddles. In classical Athens, one of the pupils of Plato's Academy is found dead. His idealistic teacher suspects that this wasn't an accident and asks Herakles, known as the 'Decipherer of Enigmas', to investigate the death and ultimately a dark, irrational and subversive cult. The second plot unfolds in parallel through the footnotes of the translator of the text. As he proceeds with his work, he becomes increasingly convinced that the original author has hidden a second meaning, which can be brought to…
I have studied revolutions for over forty years, trying to understand how people fought for liberty and democracy--but also to understand how things so often went wrong! I have worked at universities in the US, the UK, Japan, Germany, Russia, and Hong Kong, gaining a global view of how societies change. I have learned that everywhere people have to struggle for their rights. Whether in ancient Greece or in modern Cambodia, the resulting revolutionary drama unfolds sometimes with wonderful results, but sometimes with tragedy. No events better display the very best and worst that we can accomplish. I’ve chosen the books on this list to convey the power of revolutions, their grand successes and tragic failures.
All through my school years, I heard that democracy began in Athens, in ancient Greece. But I never understood how that could have happened. To me, constitutions and democracy began with the American and French Revolutions. It turns out that Athenian democracy too began with a revolution! And it was a situation very similar to our own origins: A democratic revolution in a slave-owning society! And at a time when a “national” identity was just being formed out of local and regional ones. This is a book of essays, and you don’t have to read them all. But Josiah Ober is the foremost modern expert on Athenian society and the origins of its democracy, and his essays on that topic in this book are the best accounts we have.
He clearly presents a world that is thousands of years away from us and very strange, but shows how they confronted…
Where did "democracy" come from, and what was its original form and meaning? Here Josiah Ober shows that this "power of the people" crystallized in a revolutionary uprising by the ordinary citizens of Athens in 508-507 B.C. He then examines the consequences of the development of direct democracy for upper-and lower-class citizens, for dissident Athenian intellectuals, and for those who were denied citizenship under the new regime (women, slaves, resident foreigners), as well as for the general development of Greek history. When the citizens suddenly took power into their own hands, they changed the cultural and social landscape of Greece,…
