The Rise and Fall of Classical Greece

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Journey into the world of Classical Greece, an age that reshaped the ancient Mediterranean and still influences us today. Stanford professor and author Josiah Ober uncovers how a poor, fragmented land rose to remarkable prosperity and cultural brilliance before its decline and transformation.

Lord Byron described Greece as great, fallen, and immortal, a description more apt than he knew. Through most of its long history, Greece was poor. But in the classical era of antiquity, Greece was densely populated and highly urbanized. Many surprisingly healthy classical Greeks lived in remarkably big houses and worked for high wages at specialized occupations. Middle-class spending drove sustained economic growth. Classical wealth produced a stunning cultural efflorescence lasting hundreds of years. Why did Greece’s economy flourish in the classical period – and why only then?

Proudly independent communities of free citizens defeated the mighty Persian empire and led the classical efflorescence. But the era of city-state centrality in Mediterranean history ended in 338 BCE, when Philip and Alexander of Macedon won the Battle of Chaeronea. How did the Macedonians beat a coalition of major Greek states? After Alexander’s death, battle-hardened warlords fought over the remnants of his empire, ruthlessly pursuing treasure and power. Yet Greek cities remained populous and wealthy. How did the economy and culture of Greece survive to be passed along to the Romans -- and to us?

By applying the tools of social science to newly collected data, Josiah Ober explains the political breakthroughs that enabled Greece’s rise to unimagined heights of economic and cultural accomplishment, how the city-states fell after Macedonians adapted Greek innovations, and how Greece’s economy and culture survived that fall. The result is ancient history made new, an analytic narrative of the politics behind “the Greek miracle,” and a story with profound implications for citizens today.

About the Presenter: Josiah Ober is Professor of Political Science and Classics in the School of Humanities and Science at Stanford University. He works on historical institutionalism and political theory, focusing on the political thought and practice of the ancient Greek world and its contemporary relevance. He is the author of a number of books mostly published by Princeton University Press, including Mass and Elite in Democratic Athens (1989), Political Dissent in Democratic Athens (2008), Democracy and Knowledge (2008), and The Rise and Fall of Classical Greece (2015). He has also published about 75 articles and chapters, including recent articles in American Political Science Review, Philosophical Studies, Hesperia, Polis, and Transactions of the American Philological Association. His recent work includes a general theory of democracy (Demopolis (2017)) and a study of rational cooperation and useful knowledge in Greek political thought (The Greeks and the Rational (2022)).

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