Josiah Ober

This revisionist history traces an influential theory of practical reason from its origins in ancient Greece to its modern and contemporary permutations. The Greek discovery of practical reason, as the skilled performance of strategic thinking in public and private affairs, was an intellectual breakthrough that remains both a feature and a bug of our modern world. Countering arguments that rational...

This book presents a state-of-the-art debate about the origins of Athenian democracy by five eminent scholars. The result is a stimulating, critical exploration and interpretation of the extant evidence on this intriguing and important topic. The authors address such questions as: Why was democracy first realised in ancient Greece? Was democracy "invented" or did it evolve over a long period...

A powerful case for democracy and how it can adapt and survive - if we want it to. Is democracy in trouble, perhaps even dying? Pundits say so, and polls show that most Americans believe that their country's system of governance is being 'tested' or is 'under attack'. But is the future of democracy necessarily so dire? In The Civic...

Lord Byron described Greece as great, fallen, and immortal, a characterization more apt than he knew. Through most of its long history, Greece was poor. But in the classical era, Greece was densely populated and highly urbanized. Many surprisingly healthy Greeks lived in remarkably big houses and worked for high wages at specialized occupations. Middle-class spending drove sustained economic growth,...