Book Cover
E-book
Author Zumbrunnen, John

Title Silence and democracy : Athenian politics in Thucydides' history / John Zumbrunnen
Published University Park, Pa. : Pennsylvania State University Press, ©2008

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Description 1 online resource (viii, 200 pages)
Contents Athenian stasis and the quiet of the mob -- The silence of hoi Athenaioi : two modes of Athenian action in the history -- Deliberative action and Athenian "character" -- The silence of the demos and the challenges of political judgment : on the "decline" of Athenian politics -- Justice and empire : Athenian silence and the representation of Athens abroad -- Athenian silence and the fate of Plataea
Summary The role of elites vis--̉vis the mass public in the construction and successful functioning of democracy has long been of central interest to political theorists. In Silence and Democracy, John Zumbrunnen explores this theme in Thucydides' famous history of the Peloponnesian War as a way of focusing our thoughts about this relationship in our own modern democracy. In Periclean Athens, according to Thucydides, "what was in name a democracy became in actuality rule by the first man." This political transformation of Athenian political life raises the question of how to interpret the silence of the demos. Zumbrunnen distinguishes the "silence of contending voices" from the "collective silence of the demos," and finds the latter the more difficult and intriguing problem. It is in the complex interplay of silence, speech, and action that Zumbrunnen teases out the meaning of democracy for Thucydides in both its domestic and international dimensions and shows how we may benefit from the Thucydidean text in thinking about the ways in which the silence of ordinary citizens can enable the domineering machinations of political elites in America and elsewhere today
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 192-197) and index
Notes Print version record
Subject Thucydides. History of the Peloponnesian War.
SUBJECT Thucydides. History of the Peloponnesian War
Thucydides. Historiae. swd
History of the Peloponnesian War (Thucydides) fast
Subject Democracy -- Greece -- Athens -- History -- To 1500
Political participation -- Greece -- Athens -- History -- To 1500
POLITICAL SCIENCE -- Political Process -- General.
PHILOSOPHY -- Political.
Democracy
Political participation
Politics and government
Demokratie
Politische Beteiligung
SUBJECT Athens (Greece) -- Politics and government
Subject Greece -- Athens
Athen
Genre/Form History
Form Electronic book
ISBN 9780271056555
027105655X
9780271054919
0271054913
0271050063
9780271050065
9780271053202
0271053208