The Origins of Democratic Thinking: The Invention of Politics in Classical Athens

Cynthia Farrar explores the relationship between two of classical Athens’ most consequential innovations: democracy and political theory. This revised second edition places Protagoras, Thucydides and Democritus within the political, scientific, literary and philosophical world of fifth-century Athens, showing how democratic political thought developed alongside democratic practice.

With a new introduction considering the continuing relevance of Athenian democratic ideas, this Cambridge Classical Classics edition offers a specialist study of human agency, civic order and the emergence of democratic theory in Classical Greece.