Democracy: A Life by Paul Anthony Cartledge

Democracy: A Life Reviews

• 
  Emma

  In all honesty, I don’t find Cartledge an easy read, having started, and struggled, with
  The Greeks: A Portrait of Self and Others as an undergrad. Likely, this says more about me than him. He has a rather terse style, seeming to write with precision, rather than entertainment, in mind. It is, I think, a reflection of the incredible breadth of knowledge of the author and his determination to get every bit of it into his work. In person, he comes into his own. I have been lucky enough to hear Professor Cartledge speak on several occasions, most often as part of a small group in a section of history enthusiasts in Heffers, but also on his guest spots on Radio 4’s ‘In Our Time’, during which any subject raised or offhand comment offered by another speaker or audience member elicits a fascinating response.
  
  In this book, all his considerable knowledge is brought to bear on the history and varied forms of Democracy, from its inception to modern day formats, and all the multifaceted adaptations in-between. Cartledge offers or refers to extant evidence throughout, from personal translations of ancient texts, to extensively detailed descriptions of artefacts and their history, and wonderfully clear images of coinage (in my kindle version). He engages with the big thinkers, from Aristotle to Paine, as well as the arguments of other academics. Endnotes are organised by chapter, with references to ancient and modern sources, as well as an extensive bibliography; this is book for academia as well as an interested general reader. It is a thorough, significant work written with a clear and abiding love for the subject matter. In evaluating the differences between the concepts and actualities of democratic forms, Cartledge raises questions about real-world democracy. For this reason, the book has genuine relevance to both modern British society and the international community. We, who often celebrate the democratic nature of our political system, should perhaps look again at how people can be, or have been, represented more directly or more effectively, and how that representation has been stifled or modified to serve the interests of specific groups. There are valuable lessons from the past here.
  
  
  Many thanks to Paul Cartledge, Oxford University Press, and Netgalley for this copy in exchange for an honest review.
  
• 
  Phillip

  As one might expect from Cartledge (who is a Classicist) this book is primarily about the varied lives of democracy in ancient Greece--broadly conceived from about the 8th century BCE to the Roman period. He argues principally that the simplistic formulation 'Greek democracy,' or even 'Athenian democracy' hides a wide variety of experiences and types of government experienced in divergent contexts. For instance, Cartledge makes the case for four periods of 'democracy' in Athens alone from the late 6th century to the early 4th century BCE. And these four periods each had different institutions and degrees of popular vs. aristocratic control. He also argues that the democracy in Athens was one out of a multitude of city-states (though he prefers the term citizen-states, because not all Greek poleis were urban) that tried various forms of democracy. This book also shows how, in contrast to our contemporary Western notion that democracy is self-evidently the best form of government, in Greece the political system was deeply contested, with many democracies being relatively short lived.
  
  The latter portion of the book does look beyond Greece to consider the Roman Republic, the medieval and Renaissance periods, the democratic/republican revolutions of the English Civil War and US and French Revolutions, the establishment of a functional representative government in Britain in the 19th century, and finally the contemporary period. One common thread he traces is that for most of these periods the model political thinkers looked to was the Roman res publica, rather than Athenian democracy. And even when, in the late 19th century, people began advocating for democracy as a positive thing, they rarely envisioned anything like the direct citizenship voting and appointment by lot that characterized Athenians institutions--instead they envisioned a liberal/representative system that was nominally democratic but in effect (and originally in intent) insulated political decision making from the input of the demos itself (i.e., the citizen body). In this sense, modern day 'democracies' in countries like the UK, US, Canada, Australia, France, etc. continue more in the mode of the res publica than of Athenian demokratia.
  
  This book is collected from lecture notes, as Cartledge explains in the opening, and at times this is quite obvious. There are times when he finally defines a term that he had been using quite without definition throughout previous chapters. There are also times when he re-explains things that have already been discussed. However, for the most part this is not too distracting, and it doesn't interfere with comprehension.
• 
  Piker7977

  While primarily focusing on ancient Athenian democracy (or democracies), Cartledge's study investigates the transformations of democracy throughout the ages and investigates how it affected and affects a polis. The first 13 or so chapters are about ancient Greece, which was what I was looking for. The remaining few chapters examine the Roman Republic and democracy in Europe and America during the enlightenment all the way through the modern age. There is a lot of historiographical study in this book but it helps the author craft his narrative. The different forms of democracy, and the various historical perspectives on them, are shape shifters. One of the overall points of crafting such a narrative is how the idea of direct, or shall we say pure democracy (i.e. Athens 450 B.C.E - 327 B.C.E) can vanish from the world's political menu. When it reappears it is watered down and entangled in pseudo-repbulics, eclipsed by empires, or undermined by counterintuitive agendas.
  
  The last three chapters were surprisingly compelling, yet poignant, as the reader is reminded of how the premise of one person one vote is a shell of its former ancient entity. The future of an empowered demos, according to Cartledge, is like looking at slightly opened blinds. A dark view with splinters of optimism casting rays of light into one's philosophical expanse. Can the blinds be opened further? Perhaps but it will be tough. Looking back at the ancients creates a longing for an uncut democratic kratos despite its chaos and shortfalls. I saw the history, and it worked.
• 
  Roman Clodia

  Cartledge may not be one of the most elegant of writers but in this timely book he takes his cue from the way 'democracy' has been adopted as a kind of political (and military) battle-cry of the 21st century, and explores what it originally meant in (primarily) ancient Athens, how it developed, and its appropriations from the classical period through late antiquity and via the medieval and renaissance periods into the modern world. Those without a background in classics/ancient history may be surprised to find that many thinkers and commentators from classical Athens were against democracy (literally, demos kratia, the rule of the mob or crowd), and that, as Cartledge puts it, Athenian democracy was closer to Lenin's ideas of political rule by the proletariat than the kind of oligarchy (rule of the many by the few) that we tend to mean when we talk about democratic systems today, particularly in the UK and US.
  
  The book is organised roughly chronologically and is based on an undergraduate course aimed at classicists and historians so it's not heavily theorised i.e. is not a book primarily on political thought. What Cartledge does very well is to problematise the concept of democracy, to pull it apart, alienate it from the glib ways in which it is often used today by demagogues, and put the idea back together through a close analysis of the sources.
  
  This is dense and detailed but also has a presentist slant that makes it extremely pertinent to our own current debates about what democracy is and isn't.
• 
  Bill

  Going back to the early history of democracy brings real insights for today. Cartledge makes clear that at any given point what people meant by democracy may not be what we mean by it. Most important for me was distinguishing between the modern concept of civil liberties being at the core of democracy vs. the more original sense of democracy as direct self rule by all citizens (not just the rich). The point being that our concept of rights in relation to the state would have had no relevance or even much sense for ancient Athenians. For them it was about who got to participate in decision-making, serve on juries, and serve as officials. Also selection by lot vs. voting was a key component of Athenian democracy. Very different from our concepts.
• 
  Thomas

  I quite enjoyed this as an audiobook, but would have preferred to read it physically because honestly, it got quite dense. The book mostly gives us a grounding in Ancient Greek democracy, depicting the various versions of Athens and Thebes, the conflict with Sparta, the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, and also many other lesser known Greek intellects. I also enjoyed the emphasis on Greek tragedy writers and their commentary on government. After this very firm historical grounding, the book quickly skips through the centuries of the fall from democracy, to the revolutions of a few hundred years ago, to what we call democracy now - making clear how far from the classical Greek version we are. Good grounding in democratic procedure, and gave me a list of other works and writers to read.
• 
  Jeff Lacy

  A dense scholarly commentary
  
  This isn’t your Dad’s general commentary on democracy. Instead, this is an impressive scholarly examination of the theory of democracy and its application as a system of government, applied in a pure or mixed form. This is not a thesis for the advocacy of democracy. Richly referenced, with a very robust bibliography, Cartledge provides another meaningful volume in the genre.
• 
  Drianne

  Interesting, but I often felt like it was both too detailed and not detailed enough. You can clearly see its genesis in lecture notes, but something felt missing to me in the final product here.
• 
  Chris Damon

  Very good review of democracies in ancient Greece. The author makes a point to emphasize the plural "democracies" rather than "democracy" or "Athenian democracy" as he points out that there were dozens, perhaps hundreds, of Greek city-states that had some form of democratic governance in their constitutions. Athens was the most democratic, however. In Cartledge's view, the two basic forms of government in ancient Greece were oligarchy and democracy. As a practical matter oligarchy meant rule by the rich and democracy meant rule by the poor. But for us moderns democracy/ rule by the poor is complicated by the reality of the institution of slavery which existed everywhere even in the most democratic of the poleis. Slaves were of course not part of the democratic governance.
  
  Direct democracy died out early-on in the Hellenistic period and arguably has never really come back in its Athenian form. The closest thing we may have to it today might be our jury system where citizens are selected by lot to render verdicts in law courts. Otherwise it's more a case of representative republican-form of government. Democracy didn't have a very good reputation for a couple of millennia - being viewed as "mobocracy." Even the US founding fathers looked more to the Roman Republic and Principate for inspiration than Athenian democracy. That's why we have a Senate and a Capitol, not a Boule and an Agora. (And Cartledge argues that at no time was the Roman Republic a democracy.)
  
  As a side note, through much of my life I have tended to view Plato and Aristotle as more or less twin pillars of ancient philosophy; co-equals in wisdom and importance. Although he does not say so directly, from Cartledge's book I get the impression that he views Aristotle as the towering genius and commanding presence of the ancient age.
  
  As other reviewers have pointed out, the book falls down in its desire to bring the "story of democracy" up through to the present day. It is simply too tall an order for the author in a book of this kind. Better to have just reviewed democracy in ancient Greece. For one thing, in his discussion of more modern forms of government I don't believe he once makes mention of the instrument of the public referendum which is certainly a close relative of direct democracy and has arguably caused some mischief in recent years.
• 
  Andreas Haraldstad

  I am very ambiguous about this book. While the topic is very interesting and Cartledge is a font of detailed knowledege, I still did not enjoy the book very much. I think this is due to the audibook format. It is a dense book and demands a level of concentration that audiobooks cannot give.
  
  The book explores the ancient Greek democracies (the plural is important, because even though Athen is the one we know best, many polises of ancient Greece can be labelled as democracies). He traces the development and demise of these democracies and how they functioned. He also traces the percetion of this democracy through time, nothing how much of the ancient texts that survived through time such as the writings of Plato and THucydides were anti-democratic, thus propagting a negative picture of democracy that survived until the 19th century. Here democracy was seen as mob-rule and the tyranny of the masses.
  
  All in all, this is a good, but dense book and one I recommend that people read, not listen to.
• 
  Shane Kiely

  Different from what I expected. I assumed it was just going to be standard history of Athens in its democratic era (which it sort of is) rather than an analysis of the concept of democracy itself & how the idea of Athenian democracy persisted (or didn’t) throughout the intervening years down to the modern day. The style of writing isn’t the most accessible, there’s a lot of exploration of the minutiae of government which I found off putting at first but eventually got the hang of. The book does actually explore the general history of the democratic period through the lense of Athens (& other Greek city states of the era’s) development of democracy & its eventual fall. The legacy stuff is interesting in its own right (though it is very pessimistic about how true modern democracy is to the original Athenian ideal). If you’re looking for a narrative about hoplites & trirenes, this might be one to skip, but I think it executes it’s stated thesis very well & would probably be well worth a read for anyone interested in political theory/history.
• 
  Matt McCormick

  So seldom to I just give up on a book that now I'm at a loss for what to say. I had to set it down. I couldn't go on.
  
  I've seen Democracy described as "erudite" and "highly technical." From my perspective the erudite is lost in the morass of highly technical. Also lost was clearly communicating how the early stages of Greek democracy differed from one another and why those differences were important.
  
  I say this with all due respect for Cartledge's expertise. I enjoyed his book on Thebes very much and what I admired in that book is what I found lacking in the first 120 pages of this one.
• 
  Chris

  As Cartledge states, he is somewhat pessimistic in his view of Democracy. As an academic study, this is a rigorous book. As a social commentary, of past and present, you might come away feeling jaded.
• 
  Thomas

  An interesting look into the rise and fall of the Greek conception of democracy. But less a story of the "life" of democracy than its birth.
• 
  Craine

  An indispensable introduction to politics and the implementation of direct democracy in ancient Greece in which the author presents several delineations of democracy which arose in ancient Greece. A critical analysis is also given to the often idealized notion of what was actually implemented. The chapter of democracy on the roman republic could have been longer as well as the chapters involving democracy in the modern age. Otherwise I don't have any substantial complaints.
  
  (Note I don't like the star rating and as such I only rate books based upon one star or five stars corresponding to the in my opinion preferable rating of thumbs up/down. This later rating system encourages in my opinion the degree to which the reader is likely to read a review instead of merely glancing at the number of stars)
• 
  James Miller

  The material on Greece is extremely good, but the later sections on democracy's afterlife take brevity too far.