Bücher von Josiah Ober

Die politisch-kulturelle Blüte des antiken Griechenlands ist eine der faszinierendsten Epochen der Menschheitsgeschichte. Unter Einbeziehung neuer politik- und wirtschaftswissenschaftlicher Perspektiven hat Josiah Ober eine aufsehenerregende, neue Gesamtdarstellung und Deutung des klassischen Griechenland verfasst.Josiah Ober erzählt die Geschichte vom Aufstieg und Niedergang des antiken Griechenland aufregend neu als »big history«. Er greift die höchst aktuelle Frage nach der Leistungs- und Erfolgsfähigkeit von Staaten im Sinne einer modernen Universalgeschichte für das 21. Jahrhundert auf. Eindrucksvoll und mit aktuellen Bezügen zeigt er am klassischen Griechenland, wie erst wirtschaftliches Wachstum, ein hohes Maß an Gleichheit sowie bürgerstaatliche Teilhabe die einzigartige Kultur der Hellenen ermöglichten. Es entsteht ein völlig neues Bild des antiken Hellas: nicht mehr eine wirtschaftlich rückständig-gleichgültige Sklavenhaltergesellschaft, sondern ein Netzwerk von Stadtstaaten, die ihr Wachstumspotential optimal ausnutzen. Schließlich gelingt es ihnen, die am Ende doch übermächtigen »Raubstaaten« Makedonien und Rom so zu prägen, dass das Erbe ihrer Kultur in einzigartiger Weise präsent blieb - bis heute!

Using classical Athens as its case study, this book argues that if a democratic community is to survive over time, its people must choose to go on together. It also advances fresh arguments about the role of diversity and the relevance of shared understanding of the past in creating democracies that flourish when the going gets rough.

Where did "democracy" come from, and what was its original form and meaning? The author shows that this "power of the people" crystallized in a revolutionary uprising by the ordinary citizens of Athens in 508-507 BC. He also examines the consequences of the development of direct democracy for dissident Athenian intellectuals.

When does democracy work well, and why? Is democracy the best form of government? These questions are of supreme importance today as the United States seeks to promote its democratic values abroad. Democracy and Knowledge is the first book to look to ancient Athens to explain how and why directly democratic government by the people produces wealth, power, and security. Combining a history of Athens with contemporary theories of collective action and rational choice developed by economists and political scientists, Josiah Ober examines Athenian democracy's unique contribution to the ancient Greek city-state's remarkable success, and demonstrates the valuable lessons Athenian political practices hold for us today. He argues that the key to Athens's success lay in how the city-state managed and organized the aggregation and distribution of knowledge among its citizens. Ober explores the institutional contexts of democratic knowledge management, including the use of social networks for collecting information, publicity for building common knowledge, and open access for lowering transaction costs. He explains why a government's attempt to dam the flow of information makes democracy stumble. Democratic participation and deliberation consume state resources and social energy. Yet as Ober shows, the benefits of a well-designed democracy far outweigh its costs. Understanding how democracy can lead to prosperity and security is among the most pressing political challenges of modern times. Democracy and Knowledge reveals how ancient Greek politics can help us transcend the democratic dilemmas that confront the world today.

How and why did the Western tradition of political theorizing arise in Athens during the late fifth and fourth centuries B.C.? By interweaving intellectual history with political philosophy and literary analysis, Josiah Ober argues that the tradition originated in a high-stakes debate about democracy. Since elite Greek intellectuals tended to assume that ordinary men were incapable of ruling themselves, the longevity and resilience of Athenian popular rule presented a problem: how to explain the apparent success of a regime "e;irrationally"e; based on the inherent wisdom and practical efficacy of decisions made by non-elite citizens? The problem became acute after two oligarchic coups d' tat in the late fifth century B.C. The generosity and statesmanship that democrats showed after regaining political power contrasted starkly with the oligarchs' violence and corruption. Since it was no longer self-evident that "e;better men"e; meant "e;better government,"e; critics of democracy sought new arguments to explain the relationship among politics, ethics, and morality. Ober offers fresh readings of the political works of Thucydides, Plato, and Aristotle, among others, by placing them in the context of a competitive community of dissident writers. These thinkers struggled against both democratic ideology and intellectual rivals to articulate the best and most influential criticism of popular rule. The competitive Athenian environment stimulated a century of brilliant literary and conceptual innovation. Through Ober's re-creation of an ancient intellectual milieu, early Western political thought emerges not just as a "e;footnote to Plato,"e; but as a dissident commentary on the first Western democracy.