A Discussion of Josiah Ober’s The Rise and Fall of Classical Greece

2016 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 1140-1141
Author(s):  
S. Sara Monoson

Ancient Greece has long exercised a powerful hold on the imagination of modern political science. But until fairly recently, this influence has largely been philosophical, related to the origins of many theoretical concepts—including the concept of politics itself—in the ancient world. In The Rise and Fall of Classical Greece, Josiah Ober offers a synoptic and ambitious social theoretical account of the ancient Greek world, the sources of its power, the causes of its decline, and the lessons that can be drawn from this story for contemporary social and political science. We have thus invited a range of political scientists to comment on Ober’s account of classical Greece and its relevance to contemporary political inquiry.

2016 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 1142-1143
Author(s):  
Arlene W. Saxonhouse

Ancient Greece has long exercised a powerful hold on the imagination of modern political science. But until fairly recently, this influence has largely been philosophical, related to the origins of many theoretical concepts—including the concept of politics itself—in the ancient world. In The Rise and Fall of Classical Greece, Josiah Ober offers a synoptic and ambitious social theoretical account of the ancient Greek world, the sources of its power, the causes of its decline, and the lessons that can be drawn from this story for contemporary social and political science. We have thus invited a range of political scientists to comment on Ober’s account of classical Greece and its relevance to contemporary political inquiry.


2016 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 1146-1146
Author(s):  
Daron Acemoglu ◽  
James A. Robinson ◽  
Barry R. Weingast

Ancient Greece has long exercised a powerful hold on the imagination of modern political science. But until fairly recently, this influence has largely been philosophical, related to the origins of many theoretical concepts—including the concept of politics itself—in the ancient world. In The Rise and Fall of Classical Greece, Josiah Ober offers a synoptic and ambitious social theoretical account of the ancient Greek world, the sources of its power, the causes of its decline, and the lessons that can be drawn from this story for contemporary social and political science. We have thus invited a range of political scientists to comment on Ober’s account of classical Greece and its relevance to contemporary political inquiry.


2016 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 1144-1145
Author(s):  
Melissa Schwartzberg

Ancient Greece has long exercised a powerful hold on the imagination of modern political science. But until fairly recently, this influence has largely been philosophical, related to the origins of many theoretical concepts—including the concept of politics itself—in the ancient world. In The Rise and Fall of Classical Greece, Josiah Ober offers a synoptic and ambitious social theoretical account of the ancient Greek world, the sources of its power, the causes of its decline, and the lessons that can be drawn from this story for contemporary social and political science. We have thus invited a range of political scientists to comment on Ober’s account of classical Greece and its relevance to contemporary political inquiry.


2016 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 1138-1139
Author(s):  
Federica Carugati

Ancient Greece has long exercised a powerful hold on the imagination of modern political science. But until fairly recently, this influence has largely been philosophical, related to the origins of many theoretical concepts—including the concept of politics itself—in the ancient world. In The Rise and Fall of Classical Greece, Josiah Ober offers a synoptic and ambitious social theoretical account of the ancient Greek world, the sources of its power, the causes of its decline, and the lessons that can be drawn from this story for contemporary social and political science. We have thus invited a range of political scientists to comment on Ober’s account of classical Greece and its relevance to contemporary political inquiry.


2020 ◽  
Vol 115 ◽  
pp. 329-378
Author(s):  
Lisa C. Nevett ◽  
E. Bettina Tsigarida ◽  
Zosia H. Archibald ◽  
David L. Stone ◽  
Bradley A. Ault ◽  
...  

This article argues that a holistic approach to documenting and understanding the physical evidence for individual cities would enhance our ability to address major questions about urbanisation, urbanism, cultural identities and economic processes. At the same time we suggest that providing more comprehensive data-sets concerning Greek cities would represent an important contribution to cross-cultural studies of urban development and urbanism, which have often overlooked relevant evidence from Classical Greece. As an example of the approach we are advocating, we offer detailed discussion of data from the Archaic and Classical city of Olynthos, in the Halkidiki. Six seasons of fieldwork here by the Olynthos Project, together with legacy data from earlier projects by the American School of Classical Studies at Athens and by the Greek Archaeological Service, combine to make this one of the best-documented urban centres surviving from the Greek world. We suggest that the material from the site offers the potential to build up a detailed ‘urban profile’, consisting of an overview of the early development of the community as well as an in-depth picture of the organisation of the Classical settlement. Some aspects of the urban infrastructure can also be quantified, allowing a new assessment of (for example) its demography. This article offers a sample of the kinds of data available and the sorts of questions that can be addressed in constructing such a profile, based on a brief summary of the interim results of fieldwork and data analysis carried out by the Olynthos Project, with a focus on research undertaken during the 2017, 2018 and 2019 seasons.


Author(s):  
Victor J. Katz ◽  
Karen Hunger Parshall

This chapter focuses on the mathematicians of Ancient Greece; more specifically, on the elements of geometrical algebra present in the works of Euclid and Apollonius, as well as the propositions of perhaps the greatest of the ancient mathematicians—Archimedes. Only fragmentary documentation exists of the actual beginnings of mathematics in Greece, though the concept and necessity of proofs in mathematics might have come about due to the unique climate of argument and debate fostered in Ancient Greek society. In fact, most of these early developments took place in Athens, one of the richest of the Greek states at the time and one where public life was especially lively and discussion particularly vibrant.


2010 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julián Gallego

In recent studies on the rural world in ancient Greece the application of the notion of peasant to the rural homestead has received several objections. Some scholars have preferred to use the notion of farmer to characterise the family smallholding. In this paper I first review these standpoints, and then reconsider the evidence concerning the Greek words georgos and autourgos and also concerning the patterns of settlement and agricultural systems produced by archaeological surveys. Finally, I offer my own view based on a model of multiple social and economic situations in which Greek smallholders could be involved along the family life cycle.


2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 161-170
Author(s):  
Georgios Lykesas ◽  
Christina Papaioannou ◽  
Aspasia Dania ◽  
Maria Koutsouba ◽  
Evgenia Nikolaki

Abstract According to philosophers and paedagogists, from antiquity until today, arts and dance in particular have played a determining role in shaping the human personality, as well as in helping people gain a positive perspective of their multi-aspect development in terms of knowledge, perception, creative ability, psychomotor actions, emotional and social elevation. This holistic and anthropocentric approach in antiquity set new ways for perceiving motion -particularly dance- through the dance education. The aim of this study is to provide a well-documented review of dance in religious events of the ancient Greek world, by collecting and processing data related to female deities connected to the most important dances and music in public feasts of Ancient Greece -feasts of both religious and war character. Dance, music and poetry; the three elements that managed to influence and configure the education of the Ancient Greeks, leading to one of the most fundamental elements of Greek aesthetics: “harmony”.


Author(s):  
Robert Garland

Most classical authors and modern historians depict the ancient Greek world as essentially stable and even static, once the so-called colonization movement came to an end. But this book argues that the Greeks were highly mobile, that their movement was essential to the survival, success, and sheer sustainability of their society, and that this wandering became a defining characteristic of their culture. Addressing a neglected but essential subject, this book focuses on the diaspora of tens of thousands of people between about 700 and 325 BCE, demonstrating the degree to which Greeks were liable to be forced to leave their homes due to political upheaval, oppression, poverty, warfare, or simply a desire to better themselves. Attempting to enter into the mind-set of these wanderers, the book provides an insightful and sympathetic account of what it meant for ancient Greeks to part from everyone and everything they held dear, to start a new life elsewhere—or even to become homeless, living on the open road or on the high seas with no end to their journey in sight. Each chapter identifies a specific kind of “wanderer,” including the overseas settler, the deportee, the evacuee, the asylum-seeker, the fugitive, the economic migrant, and the itinerant, and the book also addresses repatriation and the idea of the “portable polis.” The result is a vivid and unique portrait of ancient Greece as a culture of displaced persons.


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