MOUSEION - Memorial University of Newfoundland

BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS
world. Each chapter could fuel a long argument. and his excellent bibliography
would aid students greatly. I would like to see the author produce
a revised and enlarged edition with discussions of the history of
the various debates and comparanda.
KATHRYN SIMONSEN
OEPARTMENT OF CLASSICS
MEMORIAL UNIVERSITY OF NEWFOUNDLAND
ST. JOHN'S. NL ArC 557
ERIC W. ROBINSON, ed. Ancient Greek Democracy: Readings
and Sources. Malden/Oxford/Carlton: Blackwell, 2004. Pp.
xi + 326. US $34.95 (pb). ISBN 0-631-23394-6.
A plethora of books (titles of some appear on p. 5 of this volume) has
poured out of the presses in the last decade following the celebration of
the "250oth anniversary" of Greek democracy in 1993. This productivity
may seem to many unexplainable in view of the fact that our source materials
remain unchanged apart from the occasional discovery of a
fragmentary inscription which may complement slightly our picture. Is
there anything new that can be said about a subject that fascinated and
inspired scholars to write about it for centuries on? The essays Robinson
judiciously and appropriately selected for this volume not only represent
the most recent (the majority written in the late r990s for collective
works or journals) from among the best known scholarship on the
subject but also-and this is more important. in my view-they reflect a
significant shift from the traditional historical and institutional approach
to the new social. "ideological" and comparative methodologies
as applied by social scientists. As a result. the volume offers an educational
perspective to the reader by providing sets of articles in which
the views and interpretations of one scholar are challenged and debated
by another. In six chapters the issues discussed are vital to our understanding
of the principal focus. Athenian democracy. but also of Greek
democracy in general. a notable feature of this book.
The volume. being part of the series Interpreting Ancient History.
has as its target "students and other interested readers" who wish to
gain an appreciation of various perspectives and insights into the ancient
texts. which are quite aptly coordinated (most of them. at any rate)
with the essays. What binds the sixteen essays together is the conceptualization
of demokratia.
In a five-page Introduction Robinson provides a historical sketch of
the democracies that emerged in the Greek world already in the early