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Democracy and Knowledge: Innovation and Learning in Classical Athens Paperback – April 4, 2010

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Josiah Ober (Author)
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Product Details

  • Paperback: 368 pages
  • Publisher: Princeton University Press (April 4, 2010)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0691146241
  • ISBN-13: 978-0691146249
  • Product Dimensions: 6.1 x 0.8 x 9.2 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #300,552 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Top Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 starsNot Just For Academics
By Douglas K. Smith on January 6, 2009
Format: Hardcover
Bravo to Josiah Ober for this timely, well written book about the essential link between knowledge and democracy. Professor Ober writes for all audiences, not just academics. His carefully lays out the evidence for why Athens stood above other ancient societies in achievement; namely, an outstanding set of approaches to make sure that the knowledge, learning and innovation needed for success would always be available.

This is no small feat. Today, we face many difficult problems and challenges. Yet, it's very often the case that we have the know-how to meet those challenges if we can only figure out how to tap and apply it. Athens did figure this out. And any among us who would like to learn how to do in our lives and situations have much to gain from reading this clear and compelling book.
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3.0 out of 5 starsThoughtful but Incomplete; 3.5 Stars
By R. Albin TOP 1000 REVIEWER on January 18, 2011
Format: Paperback
This thoughtful and interesting book is a sustained attempt to defend participatory democracy by a careful examination of classical Athens. Ober draws on a large range of modern social science literature to discuss the key problems that must be solved by a successful polity. He argues against a broad range of opinion that these problems can be successfully solved by a broadly based, participatory democracy because such a state has advantages in the dissemination and use of knowledge. He argues as well that these characteristics provide a participatory polity with considerable flexibility and ability to deal with the novel. Athens is Ober's prototype example. He shows that it was the most successful Classical Polis, that it succeeded in the unusually competitive and violent environment of the Greek poleis, and that Athenian success correlates well with the emergence of the participatory democratic regime. He follows with a detailed examination of how Athenian institutions dealt with key problems of effectively running a state. In many ways, this is the best part of the book, showing the interesting complexity of Athenian institutions. Despite Ober's interesting exposition and analysis, I'm not sure that he really completes the argument. He shows well how Athenian institutions drove effective governance in a highly participatory democracy but does not clearly demonstrate that these were the key factors that permitted Athenian success. There are also a couple of probably minor problems with his analysis. He complements his qualitative analysis of Athenian success with some correlation analysis based on an extensive database of the poleis. I think Ober used the wrong statistical method.Read more ›
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4.0 out of 5 starsreally good
By KeithPort on April 12, 2009
Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
the book is great in that it makes you think. not beautifully written, but it's ok. it delivers what the synopsis says. if you're interested in that stuff, this is a worthwhile read.
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5.0 out of 5 starsAn engaging, interdisciplinary analysis of democracy in ancient Greece
By Danese Giuseppe on August 5, 2014
Format: Paperback
I have adopted this book for a (third-year) Economics of Institutions class at Simon Fraser university. I thoroughly enjoyed the interdisciplinary character of the book, which draws, among other things, on results from the public choice literature, the theory of networks, and the neo-institutionalist analysis of transaction costs. The book follows the advice of Hayek, according to whom dispersed knowledge should be the central problem of all social sciences, showing how democracy in Athens interacted with three epistemic process, namely aggregation, alignment and codification. The book does a great job at showing how cooperation problems (aggregation) are inextricably linked with coordination problems (alignment).

The book follows Elinor Ostrom's "substantive lesson" to avoid one-way, unequivocal directions of causation in the analysis of cooperation/coordination problem. The book shows how the three epistemic processes interacted in a feedback loop with individual agency and the institutional framework within which agency is exercised.

In summary, this book takes stock of many of the lessons we have learned from the research on cooperation and coordination done in the the last few decades by the likes of Lewis, Ostrom, Coase, Williamson and Ellickson, presenting a convincing case about how democracy promoted economic and military performance in classical Athens.
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3.0 out of 5 starsSpeculative history
By T. Carlsson on May 22, 2014
Format: Paperback Verified Purchase
The author presents a competent review of Athenian political institutions. Athens managed to create a unique system of democratic government, but that is of course a familiar story. The author's claim to novelty rests on the extension of Athenian political and economic history to matters of knowledge. He argues that the superior power of democratic Athens (over other Greek city states) is explained by the way its governmental processes utilized the ordinary knowledge of Athenian citizens.

I think the argument misses its mark because the mark is so elusive and inaccessible to historical study. Athens built an empire and its citizens participated in government, that much is clear. But what Athenian citizens may or may not have known about any given issue, how their opinions may have interacted and changed in debate, to what extent their decisions were determined by distributed ordinary knowledge rather than specialist knowledge - these seem to be completely speculative questions that historical research simply cannot answer.

Since direct evidence about states of knowledge among Athenian citizens does not exist, the author uses a variety of roundabout approaches to build his case. The results are uneven. The city-state comparisons and the timeline of the historical development of Athenian government in chapter 2 provide an interesting starting point. When the author discusses decision-making in councils, magistrates and assemblies in chapter 4, the argument is to some extent persuasive. These are, after all, manifestations of direct democracy and thereby also of ordinary knowledge. But when he moves on to legal decrees, coinage, monuments, architecture etc. in chapters 5-6, the connection to ordinary knowledge is often lost and the argument is unclear.Read more ›
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