Editors’ note: “Democracy in America: a symposium” examines the status of popular sovereignty in the United States today, nearly two centuries after the seminal work of the political theorist Alexis ...

In America today, an impeached former leader, whose lies threaten the very structure of democracy, is maneuvering to return to power. This has happened before, with dire consequences. In ancient ...

A year after their defeat of Athens in 404 BC, the Spartans allowed the Athenians to replace the government of the Thirty Tyrants with a new democracy. The tyranny had been a terrible and bloody ...

The new institutions created by Kleisthenic and/or Ephialtic democracy at Athens not only gave Athenians new opportunities for political involvement, at both city and deme level, but also changed the ...

“Future ages will wonder at us, as the present age wonders at us now,” Pericles, the great Athenian statesman, declared in his funeral oration, a celebrated speech in the winter of 431–430 B.C.E. He ...

Over 2,400 years ago, during the time of the Peloponnesian War that engulfed Greece, the leader of the Greeks, Pericles, delivered his famous ‘Funeral Oration’ to commemorate the soldiers who died in ...

Plato, one of the earliest thinkers and writers about democracy, predicted that letting people govern themselves would eventually lead the masses to support the rule of tyrants. When I tell my college ...

Log-in to bookmark & organize content - it's free! American University History Professor Valerie French discusses the ancient Greek empire, its rise, and its impact on Western civilization. This ...

Konstantine Panegyres does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations ...

Matthew A. Sears does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond ...