The Greek Polis and the Invention of Democracy presents a series of essays that trace the Greeks’ path to democracy and examine the connection between the Greek polis as a citizen state and democracy as well as the interaction between democracy and various forms of cultural expression from a comparative historical perspective and with special attention to the place of Greek democracy in political thought and debates about democracy throughout the centuries.

• Presents an original combination of a close synchronic and long diachronic examination of the Greek polis - city-states that gave rise to the first democratic system of government
• Offers a detailed study of the close interactionbetween democracy, society, and the arts in ancient Greece
• Places the invention of democracy in fifth-century bce Athens both in its broad social and cultural context and in the context of the re-emergence of democracy in the modern world
• Reveals the role Greek democracy played in the political and intellectual traditions that shaped modern democracy, and in the debates about democracy in modern social, political, and philosophical thought
• Written collaboratively by an international team of leading scholars in classics, ancient history, sociology, and political science

Johann P. Arnason is Emeritus Professor of Sociology at La Trobe University, Melbourne, and visiting professor at Charles University in Prague. His previous works include Domains and Divisions of European History (with N. Doyle, 2010), The Roman Empire in Context: Historical and Comparative Perspectives (with K. Raaflaub, Wiley-Blackwell, 2011), and Nordic Paths to Modernity (with B. Wittrock, 2012).

Kurt A. Raaflaub is the David Herlihy University Professor and Professor of Classics and History Emeritus at Brown University. His previous works include Geography and Ethnography: Perceptions of the World in Pre-Modern Societies (with R. J. A. Talbert, Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), Epic and History (with D. Konstan, Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), and The Roman Empire in Context: Historical and Comparative Perspectives (with J. Arnason, Wiley-Blackwell, 2011).

Peter Wagner is ICREA Research Professor in the Department of Sociological Theory, Philosophy of Law, and Methodology of the Social Sciences at the University of Barcelona. His previous works include Theorizing Modernity: Inescapability and Attainability in Social Theory (2001), Modernity as Experience and Interpretation (2008), and Modernity: Understanding the Present (2012).