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The Rise and Fall of Classical Greece (The Princeton History of the Ancient World), by Josiah Ober
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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 and classical wealth produced a stunning cultural efflorescence lasting hundreds of years.
Why did Greece reach such heights in the classical period--and why only then? And how, after "the Greek miracle" had endured for centuries, did the Macedonians defeat the Greeks, seemingly bringing an end to their glory? Drawing on a massive body of newly available data and employing novel approaches to evidence, Josiah Ober offers a major new history of classical Greece and an unprecedented account of its rise and fall.
Ober argues that Greece's rise was no miracle but rather the result of political breakthroughs and economic development. The extraordinary emergence of citizen-centered city-states transformed Greece into a society that defeated the mighty Persian Empire. Yet Philip and Alexander of Macedon were able to beat the Greeks in the Battle of Chaeronea in 338 BCE, a victory made possible by the Macedonians' appropriation of Greek innovations. After Alexander's death, battle-hardened warlords fought ruthlessly over the remnants of his empire. But Greek cities remained populous and wealthy, their economy and culture surviving to be passed on to the Romans--and to us.
A compelling narrative filled with uncanny modern parallels, this is a book for anyone interested in how great civilizations are born and die.
This book is based on evidence available on a new interactive website. To learn more, please visit: http://polis.stanford.edu/.
- Sales Rank: #347315 in Books
- Brand: Ober, Josiah
- Published on: 2015-05-04
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.50" h x 1.30" w x 6.40" l, .0 pounds
- Binding: Hardcover
- 464 pages
Review
Winner of the 2016 Douglass C. North Research Award, Society for Institutional and Organizational Economics (SIOE)
One of Flavorwire's 10 Must-Read Academic Books for 2015
One of HistoryBuff.com's 10 Can't-Miss History Books of 2015
"Superb."--Armand Marie Leroi, New York Times
"In the late fourth century B.C., Aristotle and his students collected the constitutions of more than 150 […] city-states. The scholar who would today follow in Aristotle's footsteps has to deal with a far more formidable mass of data. Few of today's scholars control more of this data, or write about it more insightfully, than Josiah Ober. [T]hose willing to put in the effort will learn much from the deep meditations of an expert historian and political philosopher."--James Romm, Wall Street Journal
"[T]his could turn out to be Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire for classical Greece."--Jonathan Sturgeon, Flavorwire
"Ober marshals a wealth of new data to make the case for a much different view of Greek history . . . there was something distinct about the Greek world, he argues. What set the Greeks apart, he says, was their choice of a particular kind of order--and the cultural attitudes that went with it. Citizen self-government. Equality of standing among persons. Fair and open institutions. These ideas, unusual in history, were well developed in the Greek world, Ober notes. If we care about them, he says, we should pay attention."--Marc Parry, Chronicle of Higher Education
"[Ober¹s] central argument is that the achievements of Greek civilization were rooted in its prosperity, and that was the result of a rough economic and political equality. . . . [He] ranges over a half millennium of Greek history, from the 8th to the 3rd centuries BCE, seeking the roots of Greek "efflorescence"--its material and cultural flourishing. . . . [The Rise and Fall of Classical Greece] is rife with parallels to the present."--Brian Bethune, Macleans
"An attractive, informative, and timely picture of Greece from Homer to Aristotle. . . . It's an absorbing story full of excitement, drama and hope."--Evaggelos Valiantos, Huffington Post
"A sharp and insightful economic history."--Daisy Dunn, History Today
[The Rise and Fall of Classical Greece] is by far [Ober's] most ambitious work to date, a magisterial tour of the successes and failures of various city-states throughout the Greek world from the archaic through the Hellenistic periods. . . . The thrust of the book is not just provocative but persuasive."--Adriaan Lanni, The New Rambler
"This book is a groundbreaking examination of what Ober (political science, Stanford) calls the 'efflorescence' of ancient Greece, which, divided into some 1,100 city-states as it was, developed a unified, dominant culture."--Choice
"His narrative history of Greek efflorescence is engaging and full of insights."--Richard Seaford, Literary Review
"A thought-provoking book with great depth. As the great political theorists of the modern era have always known, the ancient Greek experience provides immense empirical material to mine for insights into political science: how we design rules of politics to secure human freedom and well-being. We ignore the experience of classical civilization to our own disadvantage."--Jason Sorens, The American Conservative
"This challenging book is like no other history of the ancient world. . . . [Ober] produces some engaging and striking analyses of familiar historical episodes."--American Historical Review
"Intriguing. . . . [Y]ou can think of this book as how an economist might think about ancient Greece."--Tyler Cowen, Marginal Revolution
From the Back Cover
"In this exemplary book, Josiah Ober, one of the foremost international authorities on ancient Greek political, economic, and intellectual history, persuasively explains why and how ancient Greek communities and individuals managed--and sometimes failed--to flourish culturally and materially."--Paul Cartledge, author of The Spartans: The World of the Warrior-Heroes of Ancient Greece
"This is a groundbreaking book on the ancient world. Displaying the narrative skill of a master historian, The Rise and Fall of Classical Greece is must reading."--Barry Strauss, author of The Death of Caesar: The Story of History's Greatest Assassination
"An astonishing work. If you want to know what the fuss is about the ancient Greeks, this is the book to start with."--John Ma, University of Oxford
"This excellent book presents a wealth of new evidence on the economic performance of ancient Greece, and how that performance was linked to democratic institutions. The data that Ober presents are truly extraordinary. Moreover, the main story is well presented, well argued, and thoroughly enjoyable to read."--Robert Fleck, Clemson University
About the Author
Josiah Ober is professor of political science and classics at Stanford University. His books include Democracy and Knowledge, Political Dissent in Democratic Athens, The Athenian Revolution, and Mass and Elite in Democratic Athens (all Princeton).
Most helpful customer reviews
40 of 43 people found the following review helpful.
History by the numbers
By j a haverstick
I was a classics major and taught Greek philosophy most of my life - off and on. If I read two books a year on the Greeks, that would be a hundred plus over the last half century. Sometimes I think, well, what’s left to learn?, maybe I should switch to modern novels. This book, however, was a really informative read.
Ober writes that he he is using “modern tools” to examine the classical efflorescence. Indeed. You will find all the buzz words of the last 30 years in this book. You will find our old friend E O Wilson, of course, game theory and all it’s application to human society and (I myself strongly demur) the default of rational decider economic theory
Especially interesting to me as a beekeeper and hymenopteraphiliac was the early dependence on lateral organization among the social insects (ants, in this example). This work is truly insightful and is changing our constructs in many fields, including neuroscience. Ants at Work, is the study quoted, but I would suggest the more recent Honeybee Democracy. Bit of a digression, I guess, but also an excellent example of how Ober deploys "modern tools" in his book. I do think applying this model of social organization is a new and interesting take on the organization of the polis. The theme is dropped after the first quarter of the book.
There are graphs and charts throughout the book , in addition to other things giving detailed information on the size and rankings of the polies recently compiled which give the classics student a much need context to the usual Athen=Greece perspective. Syracuse is well covered, another unusual feature. Modern measurements are used to attempt to quantify the actual “material” achievements of the life style during the classical period, helping us understand the common claim that the Greeks reached a standard of living not re-achieved for several millennia.
I should note, there seems to be a school developing in the classics department at Stanford. I (coincidentally) read this book after Foragers, Farmers and Fossil Fuel to which this book refers and which I would also recommend.
When the classics are, they say, declining along with the liberal arts in general, I’m amazed at how much good stuff continues to be published. This book is not just good stuff, however, it is essential reading for classicists and students and history buffs in general.
16 of 18 people found the following review helpful.
This is like saying that David Mamet could turn out to be ...
By S. Matthews
One of the reviews quoted on the homepage for this says 'could turn out to be the Gibbon of classical Greece'. This is like saying that David Mamet could turn out to be the Aeschylus of the United States of America. Not quite; in fact not even close. Not quite if for no other reason than that Ober is a prime example of the Stanford / MIT school of historians / economists capable of framing an analysis in terms of things like a principle component factorisation or a payoff matrix, and even happy to do so. If you are not comfortable with this sort of approach - like, apparently, some of the reviewers here - then you should maybe look elsewhere for your fix.
The principle components of this are (1) quantitative economics ins a style similar to what Peter Temin did for the Roman Empire but much better written (not hard), (2) game theoretic speculations that start from an influential analysis of ant colonies performed by (another) professor at Stanford, and (3) a structural history of classical Greece illuminated with anecdotes in the manner that Gibbon would have recognised (though I am confident that Gibbon would never have described the Macedeon of Philip II as off-off-broadway, even factoring in a couple of centuries of stylistic shift).
However while he may not be Edward Gibbon, he does make you think about, and engage with everybody from Plato and Aristotle through Hobbes to John Rawls and Mancur Olsen, and even, in my case, Lewis Mumford (!), while demolishing a lot of popular misconceptions and romantic political fantasies about the nature of hellenic Greece. Which is pretty good.
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful.
Interesting But Incomplete Argument
By R. Albin
An interesting and ambitious book aimed at understanding the dynamics of the efflorescence of Classical Greek society. Ober uses the term efflorescence in a very specific way. It refers to a sustained period of relatively high and relatively broadly distributed economic performance. Ober argues well that Classical Greece performed very well in comparison with the general run of premodern societies. Implicit in this claim is the concept that economic efflorescence was essential for the cultural and intellectual achievements we generally regard as characteristic of Classical Greece. To explain economic efflorescence, Ober invokes an extension of Douglass North's interpretation for the economic dynamism of early modern Europe. In this model, economic success results from a set of crucial political and cultural institutions, including relatively republican-egalitarian political institutions, some form of uniform legal codes, open economic orders, and security of property. Ober argues that these features were intrinsic to the Greek poleis and that these institutional features and intra-state competition resulted in virtuous cycles that reinforced their success. Classical Athens is the exemplar of many of these features but Ober argues well that these institutions were widely distributed and became even more widely distributed over the lifetime of Classical Greece. In a well formulated argument, Ober shows that these institutions persisted and even expanded during the Hellenistic period, when larger politics were dominated by Alexander's successors. Ober argues convincingly that Philip, Alexander, and their successors were essentially smart enough to keep the golden eggs flowing by limiting their control over poleis. As in some of Ober's prior works, this is an argument in favor of the long-term benefits of democratic institutions.
Ober's argument, particularly his detailed description of the overall history of poleis from their early history into the Hellenistic period is generally convincing. As a bonus, this is the best concise overview of Classical history I've encountered. There are a couple of points that Ober may not have considered or considered incompletely. At several points, he touches on but perhaps doesn't emphasize sufficiently what may be a major factor in the republicanism of the poleis. Prior to Philip and Alexander, there are very few examples of Greek leaders trying to legitimate themselves by claiming some form of divine role. Was there some distinctive feature of Greek religious practice that militated against this common phenomenon? A potential factor that Ober might be overlooking is an important aspect of Greek colonization. He points to the successful establishment of Greek colonies around the Mediterranean as an important factor in the overall success of the poleis. They expanded the economies of the core Greek world and provided population safety valves. Implicit in this description, however, is the idea that Greek colonists found it relatively easy to establish new poleis. This must have involved a certain amount of violent dispossession and is evidence of some degree of technological superiority over displaced native peoples. This is another potential analogy with early modern Europe, whose economic dynamism owed a great deal to the enormous windfall of the western hemisphere. The institutions discussed by Ober work, but perhaps best when coupled with successful colonialism.
Ober is less successful in other ways. While his argument for economic efflorescence is quite good, he is less successful at explaining what really makes the Classical efflorescence so interesting; its intellectual and cultural dynamism. Indeed, the primary thrust of his argument is that the relatively egalitarian institutions of the poleis made the economic efflorescence possible. He has an interesting and unavoidably speculative argument for the emergence of these features as Greece exited the so-Greek Dark Age, but some of his reasoning has a circular quality. A fair fraction of the book is devoted to explaining the North paradigm and use of some of the technical language of economists, and I suspect this will be an obstacle for some readers. I found some specific arguments a bit strained. Ober attempts to bring Sparta into his general scheme by arguing that it was a extreme example of citizen rights but describing this agricultural totalitarian state in this way strikes me a strained. He also argues that Aristotle's writing is consistent with his interpretation of the institutions of the poleis. This may be true on the basis of the Politics but I'm not sure that it is consistent with the views in the Nicomachean Ethics, which strikes me as an aristocratic educational program.
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