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The Spear, the Scroll, and the Pebble - Richard A. Billows

The Spear, the Scroll, and the Pebble

How the Greek City-State Developed as a Male Warrior-Citizen Collective
Buch | Hardcover
288 Seiten
2023
Bloomsbury Academic (Verlag)
978-1-350-28920-8 (ISBN)
CHF 129,95 inkl. MwSt
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This book presents a powerful new argument for how and why the Greek city-states, including their distinctive society and culture, came to be - and why they had the highly unusual and influential form they took. After reviewing early city-state formation, and the economic underpinnings of city-state society, three key chapters examine the way the Greeks developed their unique society. The spear, scroll and pebble encapsulate the book's core ideas.

The Spear: city-state Greeks developed a citizen-militia military system that gave relatively equal importance to each citizen-warrior, thereby emboldening the citizen-warriors to demand political rights.

The Pebble: the resultant growth of collective political systems of oligarchy and democracy led to thousands of citizens forming the sovereign element of the state; they made political decisions through communal debate and voting.

The Scroll: in order for such systems to function, a shared information base had to be created, and this was done by setting up public notices of laws, proposed policies, public meeting agendas, and a host of other information.

To access this information, these military and political citizens had to be able to read. Billows examines the spread of schools and literacy throughout the Greek world, showing that the male city-state Greeks formed the world's first-known mass literate society. He concludes by showing that it was the mass-literate nature of the Greek city-state society that explains the remarkable and influential culture the classical Greeks produced.

Richard A. Billows is Professor of History at Columbia University, USA. His books include Antigonos the One-Eyed and the Creation of the Hellenistic State (1990), Kings and Colonists: Aspects of Macedonian Imperialism (1995), Marathon: How One Battle Changed Western Civilization (2010) and Before and After Alexander: The Legacy and Legend of Alexander the Great (2018).

Introduction

Chapter 1: The Origin and Early Development of the City-State
Chapter 2: Economic Growth: A Necessary Condition for the City-State
Chapter 3: The Spear: Warfare and the City-State
Chapter 4: The Pebble: Collective Decision Making and the City-State
Chapter 5. The Scroll: Literacy and the City-State

Conclusion: The Literate Citizen

Appendix 1: Aristotle’s Politeiai
Appendix 2: Colonies and Metropoleis

Notes
Bibliography
Index

Erscheinungsdatum
Zusatzinfo 4 bw illus
Verlagsort London
Sprache englisch
Maße 156 x 234 mm
Themenwelt Geschichte Allgemeine Geschichte Vor- und Frühgeschichte
Sozialwissenschaften Politik / Verwaltung Politische Systeme
Wirtschaft Volkswirtschaftslehre Wirtschaftspolitik
ISBN-10 1-350-28920-5 / 1350289205
ISBN-13 978-1-350-28920-8 / 9781350289208
Zustand Neuware
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