Customer Reviews

The People of Plato: A Prosopography of Plato and Other Socratics

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Debra Nails' "The People of Plato" is pretty much an indispensable resource when it comes to Plato scholarship. I have found it invaluable on more than one occasion, not the least of which is the MA thesis I am currently procrastinating from...

But "invaluable" in one sense (usefulness for work) does not equal "invaluable" in another sense (willingness to be gouged). This book is fantastically overpriced. Amazon's price is the best I've seen online, but is still beyond the pale. Hackett needs to either issue a softcover, or re-evaluate its hardcover pricing. I mean, seriously? I can buy a "Plato Complete Works" hardcover(~1800pp.) for $52 list, while "People" is listed at $75, for ~400pp.?

Anyway, let's assume that you have somehow justified the expense to yourself, as I clearly did. Here's what you get: A prosopography ("Facebook," ha ha) of every character mentioned by name in Plato's dialogues. Nails has compiled biographical information on each character, and provided a concordance of every appearance of that character in the text itself. I cannot overstate how useful this is when it comes to both reading for comprehension (it can be a real task to keep characters straight in such a complex work) as well as writing scholastically (think of it as the best index ever). In addition, she provides several vignettes on various topics relating to ancient Athens, such as the layout of the Agora, various family trees of important figures, the functioning of the Deme system, and the like.

So let me just say: in terms of content, this is a Five-star book. I can't recommend it highly enough. The writing is clear and lucid, the organization is useful in the extreme. But I can't in good conscience give it five stars at its current list price. It's absolute highway robbery for a new-ish work of scholarship which is still in print.

This "who's who in Plato's dialogues" supersedes all its predecessors and is absolutely indispensable for university libraries (the book is priced accordingly- a soft cover may be due soon for the general public). Very detailed information is given on all the characters which appear or are mentioned in the dialogues, and this enhances their understanding in fundamental ways. There is a lot of scholarship these days on the dialogue form and its use by Plato (including the brilliant and seminal treatise by Charles Kahn), but only Prof. Nails has done the painstaking work of finding out who is talking where, when, and most likely why. A tremendous contribution.

Current events in Greece echo the upheavals of the end of the Hellenic period in the grotesque internecine fighting of the later 5th and earlier 4th centuries. It is good to have a directory of some of the participants, all related by the fact that they are mentioned in Plato's writings (i.e., are characters in Plato's dialogues). The work is a good reminded that Plato was not making up fictional characters, but using real, flesh and blood contemporaries to take parts in his intellectual dramas. Great work!