Background
Ober, Josiah was born on February 27, 1953 in Brunswick, Maine, United States. Son of Nathaniel and Patricia Wilder (Stride) O. Bachelor of Arts, University Minnesota, 1975, Master of Arts, 1977.
( This book asks an important question often ignored by a...)
This book asks an important question often ignored by ancient historians and political scientists alike: Why did Athenian democracy work as well and for as long as it did? Josiah Ober seeks the answer by analyzing the sociology of Athenian politics and the nature of communication between elite and nonelite citizens. After a preliminary survey of the development of the Athenian "constitution," he focuses on the role of political and legal rhetoric. As jurymen and Assemblymen, the citizen masses of Athens retained important powers, and elite Athenian politicians and litigants needed to address these large bodies of ordinary citizens in terms understandable and acceptable to the audience. This book probes the social strategies behind the rhetorical tactics employed by elite speakers. A close reading of the speeches exposes both egalitarian and elitist elements in Athenian popular ideology. Ober demonstrates that the vocabulary of public speech constituted a democratic discourse that allowed the Athenians to resolve contradictions between the ideal of political equality and the reality of social inequality. His radical reevaluation of leadership and political power in classical Athens restores key elements of the social and ideological context of the first western democracy.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0691028648/?tag=2022091-20
( Where did "democracy" come from, and what was its origi...)
Where did "democracy" come from, and what was its original form and meaning? Here Josiah Ober shows that this "power of the people" crystallized in a revolutionary uprising by the ordinary citizens of Athens in 508-507 B.C. He then examines the consequences of the development of direct democracy for upper-and lower-class citizens, for dissident Athenian intellectuals, and for those who were denied citizenship under the new regime (women, slaves, resident foreigners), as well as for the general development of Greek history. When the citizens suddenly took power into their own hands, they changed the cultural and social landscape of Greece, thereby helping to inaugurate the Classical Era. Democracy led to fundamental adjustments in the basic structures of Athenian society, altered the forms and direction of political thinking, and sparked a series of dramatic reorientations in international relations. It quickly made Athens into the most powerful Greek city-state, but it also fatally undermined the traditional Greek rules of warfare. It stimulated the development of the Western tradition of political theorizing and encouraged a new conception of justice that has striking parallels to contemporary theories of rights. But Athenians never embraced the notions of inherency and inalienability that have placed the concept of rights at the center of modern political thought. Thus the play of power that constituted life in democratic Athens is revealed as at once strangely familiar and desperately foreign, and the values sustaining the Athenian political community as simultaneously admirable and terrifying.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0691001901/?tag=2022091-20
( How and why did the Western tradition of political theo...)
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 "irrationally" 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 "better men" meant "better government," 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 "footnote to Plato," but as a dissident commentary on the first Western democracy.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0691001227/?tag=2022091-20
( How do communities survive catastrophe? Using classical...)
How do communities survive catastrophe? 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. That choice often entails hardship and hard bargains. In good times, going on together presents few difficulties. But in the face of loss, disruption, and civil war, it requires tragic sacrifices and agonizing compromises. Athenian Legacies demonstrates with flair and verve how the people of one influential political community rebuilt their democratic government, rewove their social fabric, and, through thick and thin, went on together. The book's essays address amnesty, civic education, and institutional innovation in early Athens, a city that built and lost an empire while experiencing plague, war, economic trauma, and civil conflict. As Ober vividly demonstrates, Athenians became adept at collective survival. They conjoined a cultural commitment to government by the people with new institutions that captured the social and technical knowledge of a diverse population to recover from revolution, foreign occupation, and the ravages of war. Ober provides insight into notorious instances of Athenian injustice, explaining why slaves, women, and foreign residents willingly risked their lives to support a regime in which they were systematically mistreated. He answers the question of why Socrates never left a city he said was badly governed. At a time when social scientists debate the cultural grounding necessary to foster democracy, Athenian Legacies advances new 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.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0691133948/?tag=2022091-20
Ober, Josiah was born on February 27, 1953 in Brunswick, Maine, United States. Son of Nathaniel and Patricia Wilder (Stride) O. Bachelor of Arts, University Minnesota, 1975, Master of Arts, 1977.
Bachelor, University Minnesota, 1975. Master of Arts, University Minnesota, 1977. Doctor of Philosophy, University Michigan, 1980.
Assistant professor history Montana State University, Bozeman, 1980—1984, associate professor, 1984—1988, professor, 1988—1990. Professor classics Princeton (New Jersey) University, since 1990, chairman department classics, 1994—2001. Professor political science Stanford University, California, since 2006.
Visiting professor University Michigan, Ann Arbor, 1986—1987. Senior research associate American School Classical Studies, Athens, Greece, 1981, Athens, 83, Athens, 85, Athens, 88. Visiting lecturer Archeological Institute American, 1985—1987.
Martin Classical lecturer Oberlin College, 1994. Magie chair in classics, since 1994. Board directors Prinecton University Press., 1995—2000.
( This book asks an important question often ignored by a...)
( Where did "democracy" come from, and what was its origi...)
( How do communities survive catastrophe? Using classical...)
( How and why did the Western tradition of political theo...)
Member Archaeological Institute American, American Philological Association (board directors), American School Classical Studies.