1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910457671203321

Autore

Nelson Eric <1977->

Titolo

The Greek tradition in Republican thought / / Eric Nelson [[electronic resource]]

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Cambridge : , : Cambridge University Press, , 2004

ISBN

1-107-14982-7

1-280-45808-9

0-511-18612-6

0-511-18529-4

0-511-18798-X

0-511-32708-0

0-511-49064-X

0-511-18705-X

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (xv, 296 pages) : digital, PDF file(s)

Collana

Ideas in context ; ; 69

Disciplina

321.8/6

Soggetti

Republicanism

Republicanism - Greece

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

; 1. Greek nonsense in More's Utopia -- ; 2. The Roman agrarian laws and Machiavelli's modi privati -- ; 3. James Harrington and the "balance of justice" -- ; 4. "Prolem cum matre creatam": the background to Montesquieu -- ; 5. Montesquieu's Greek republics -- ; 6. The Greek tradition and the American Founding -- Coda: Tocqueville and the Greeks.

Sommario/riassunto

The Greek Tradition in Republic Thought completely rewrites the standard history of republican political theory. It excavates an identifiably Greek strain of republican thought which attaches little importance to freedom as non-dependence and sees no intrinsic value in political participation. This tradition's central preoccupations are not honour and glory, but happiness (eudaimonia) and justice - defined, in Plato's terms, as the rule of the best men. This set of commitments yields as startling readiness to advocate the corrective redistribution of



wealth, and even the outright abolition of private property. The Greek tradition was revived in England during the early sixteenth century and was broadly influential throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Its exponents included Sir Thomas More, James Harrington, Montesquieu and Thomas Jefferson, and it contributed significantly to the ideological underpinnings of the American Founding as well as the English Civil Wars.