The Divided City - On Memory and Forgetting in Ancient Athens (Paperback, New Ed)

An exploration of the roles of conflict and forgetting in ancient Athens. Athens, 403 B.C.E. The bloody oligarchic dictatorship of the Thirty is over, and the democrats have returned to the city victorious. Renouncing vengeance, in an act of willful amnesia, citizens call for--if not invent--amnesty. They agree to forget the unforgettable, the "past misfortunes," of civil strife or stasis. More precisely, what they agree to deny is that stasis--simultaneously partisanship, faction, and sedition--is at the heart of their politics. Continuing a criticism of Athenian ideology begun in her pathbreaking study The Invention of Athens, Nicole Loraux argues that this crucial moment of Athenian political history must be interpreted as constitutive of politics and political life and not as a threat to it. Divided from within, the city is formed by that which it refuses. Conflict, the calamity of civil war, is the other, dark side of the beautiful unitary city of Athens. In a brilliant analysis of the Greek word for voting, diaphora, Loraux underscores the conflictual and dynamic motion of democratic life. Voting appears as the process of dividing up, of disagreement--in short, of agreeing to divide and choose. Not only does Loraux reconceptualize the definition of ancient Greek democracy, she also allows the contemporary reader to rethink the functioning of modern democracy in its critical moments of internal stasis.

General

Imprint:	Zone Books
Country of origin:	United States
Series:	The Divided City
Release date:	April 2006
First published:	2002
Authors:	Nicole Loraux
Translators:	Corinne Pache • Jeff Fort
Dimensions:	229 x 152 x 25mm (L x W x T)
Format:	Paperback - Trade
Pages:	360
Edition:	New Ed
ISBN-13:	978-1-890951-09-2
Languages:	English
Subtitles:	French
Categories:	Books > Humanities > History > World history > BCE to 500 CE Books > Humanities > History > European history > General Books > History > European history > General Books > History > World history > BCE to 500 CE
LSN:	1-890951-09-9
Barcode:	9781890951092

Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate? Let us know about it.

Does this product have an incorrect or missing image? Send us a new image.

Is this product missing categories? Add more categories.

Review This Product

No reviews yet - be the first to create one!