Politics Ancient and Modern

Pierre Vidal-Naquet teaches Ancient History at the Écoles des Hautes Études in Paris.

• Translator's Note. Acknowledgement.Introduction: Athenian Democracy in 1788.1. Plato, History and the Historians.2. Atlantis and the Nations.3. The Enlightenment in the Greek City-state.4. The Formation of Bourgeois Athens.5. The Place of Greece in the Imaginary Representations of the Men of the Revolution.6. From Paris to Athens and Back.7. Renan and the Greek Miracle.Index.

"The clear product of vast learning and energy." Australian Journal of Politics and History "The sense of engagement is exhilarating." Common Knowledge "These innovative recent studies of a master ancient historian are now available in a lucid, perceptive translation. Vidal-Naquet, in the tradition of Arnaldo Mornigliano and Moses Finley and with their range and strategies, dissects the cult of antiquity in 18th- and 19th-century France, revealing how 'the Greek miracle' was created by modern intrustions into the essentially alien nature of Classical Greece and by 'mythologized' adaptations to contemporary purposes. In the expanding field of the classical tradition here is new enlightenment by a luminous historian." Meyer Reinhold, Institute for the Classical Tradition, Boston University"Vidal-Naquet is one of the foremost scholars of the ancient Greeks' realm of imaginary representations. His learning is stupendous, land in this book he combines a deeply personal political engagement with formidable scholarship. Politics Ancient and Modern is both a plea for, and a triumphant demonstration of, the comparative and interdisciplinary character of the best in ancient Greek historical studies." Paul Cartledge, Clare College, Cambridge