Josiah Ober on the Rise and Fall of Ancient Greece

Josiah Ober, Mitsotakis Professor in the School of Humanities and Science at Stanford University, works on historical institutionalism and political theory, focusing on the political thought and practice of the ancient Greek world and its contemporary relevance. He is the author of a number of books mostly published by Princeton University Press, including Mass and Elite in Democratic Athens (1989), Political Dissent in Democratic Athens (2008), Democracy and Knowledge (2008). He has also published about 75 articles and chapters, including recent articles in American Political Science Review, Philosophical Studies, Hesperia, Polis, and Transactions of the American Philological Association.His new book on The Rise and Fall of Classical Greece will appear in Spring 2015, from Princeton UP. It documents and explains the remarkable Greek efflorescence of ca. 800-300 BCE, the Macedonian conquest of the late fourth century, and the persistence of economic flourishing into the Hellenistic era. Other work in progress includes a general theory of democracracy a study of rational cooperation and useful knowledge in Greek political thought.