Reviews for Australian democracy in theory and practice

The average rating for Australian democracy in theory and practice based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2019-07-07 00:00:00 Marian Guglielmoni I'm not sure how I always wind up stumbling upon books few people have bothered to review, but it just adds to the fun, and in the case of this book I was more than satisfied. Athenian Demo racy is a collection of previously published essays and lectures that were compiled into this book for posterity, and scholars and history enthusiasts of the Classical period are fortunate for such a decision. Jones's book attempts to explore the facets and character of the Athenian democratic system and to understand how this system actually operated for, as he observes, often it was truly an oligarchy rather than a functioning republic. Looking at the economics, military structure, governmental bodies, and class differences the reader observe a side of Athens that is not always so elaborated upon by popular and even academic scholars. This is not always an easily approachable book, for Jones's prose can be rather dense, and when he digs into the minutiae of economic figures it becomes a bit of a slog. Yet despite this Jones's book is still worth the reader's time because it offers an examination that is critical without being condemnatory. Jones gives his reader a real glimpse into the realities of the Athenian state pointing towards the inconsistencies and faults without dissolving into condemnation. This book is still relevant and important to the discourse even after close to half a century. The image of Athens as a bastion of liberty, freedom, and democracy is underscored by the economic realities of oligarchical establishment and the proliferation of slaves within the city. It's the skill of Jones as a writer and historian that the reader is, by the end, not forgiving of these faults but at least a little understanding.

Review # 2 was written on 2009-07-16 00:00:00 Scott Jaffe In this study, Jones attempts to trace the outlines of Athenian society along modern historiographic lines. The book presents five essays, which include economic and demographic analyses of Athens during the classical period. He also attempts to answer the question, which can only be addressed conjecutrally, of the extent to which the Athenian economy was based on slave labor. In general, Jones provides the most reasonable hypotheses that I have seen about the total population, the distribution of wealth, the class structure and other vital statistics of classical Athens. In some cases, as in his discussion of trade balance at the end of the fourth chapter, he moves in the direction of conclusions that the evidence might not really warrant, but these instances are limited and do not affect the overall reliability of the book. Most useful is his third chapter, entitled "The Critics." It is a commonplace that the Athenians practiced democracy without theorizing about it. Those philosophers whose writings survive to us almost exclusively represent the oligarchic perspective. Jones provides a plausible reconstruction of how the large majority of citizens and politicians who believed in, worked and bled for Athenian democracy would have answered the intellectual elites who invented political philosophy, had those citizens thought it worth their while to do so.