How to Do Things with History

Paul Christesen is William R. Kenan Professor of Ancient Greek History in the Department of Classics at Dartmouth College. He is the author of Olympic Victor Lists and Ancient Greek History and Sport and Democracy in the Ancient and Modern Worlds. He is also co-editor, with Donald Kyle, of The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Sport and Spectacle in Greek and Roman Antiquity, and author of more than 30 articles. He is currently working with Paul Cartledge of Cambridge University on the Oxford History of the Archaic Greek World. He regularly speaks about these topics to scholarly and general audiences in the United States and Europe. He holds a B.A. from Dartmouth, and a Ph.D. from Columbia University.

• IntroductionChapter 1: The "Great Leap" in Early Greek Politics and Political Thought: A Comparative Perspective, Kurt A. RaaflaubChapter 2: Pericles' Utopia - Reading of Thucydides and Plato, Emily GreenwoodChapter 3: How to Turn History into Scenario: Plato's Republic Book 8 on the Role of Political Office in Constitutional Change, Melissa LaneChapter 4: "Cyrus appeared both great and good": Xenophon and the Performativity of Kingship, Carol AtackChapter 5: Jurors and Serial Killers: Loneliness, Deliberation, and Community in Ancient Athens, Alastair J. L. BlanshardChapter 6: The Sparta Game: Violence, Proportionality, Austerity, Collapse, Josiah Ober and Barry R. WeingastChapter 7: Marx and Antiquity, Wilfried NippelChapter 8: Marxism and Ancient History, Kostas VlassopoulosChapter 9: Building for the State: A World-Historical Perspective, Walter ScheidelChapter 10: Picturing History: The Ethics and Aesthetics of Tyrannicide in the Art of Classical Athens and Early Imperial China, Jeremy TannerChapter 11: Imaginary Intercourse: an Illustrated History of Greek Pederasty, Robin OsborneChapter 12: The Boys from Cydathenaeum: Aristophanes versus Cleon Again, Edith HallChapter 13: How to Write Anti-Roman History, Tim WhitmarshAfterward, Paul Cartledge

This remarkable collection of essays is both inspired by the work of, and dedicated to, Paul Cartledge.... All essays are very elegantly written and retain the immediacy of the occasion when they were originally delivered. They entertain the reader by approaching their respective topics from unusual perspectives. This collection of essays is a must in the library of everyone interested in ancient Greece and, more generally, in classics and in intellectual history.