Description: Challenging the modern belief that democracy and bondage are incompatible, Paulin Ismard directs our attention to ancient Athens, where the functioning of civic government depended on skilled, knowledgeable experts who were literally public servants--slaves owned by the city-state rather than by private citizens.
Brief description: Paulin Ismard is Associate Professor of Greek History at the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, and a member of the Institut Universitaire de France. He is the author of L'Événement Socrate, winner of the Sénat History Book Prize, and Democracy's Slaves: A Political History of Ancient Greece, originally published in French as La Démocratie contre les experts, which received the Rendez-vous de l'Histoire de Blois Prize and the François Millepierres Prize of the Académie Française.
Review Quotes: This ingenious work is as much a study of ancient Greek democracy as of its public slaves. In fine-grained interpretations of the ancient sources, informed by an impressive grasp of the comparative literature on slavery, Ismard unravels nearly all the puzzling aspects of the dēmosioi's status and roles: policemen, priests, artisans, civil servants, archivist and expert advisers, yet fully slaves. In so doing, he further illuminates the paradox of the constitutive role of slavery in the Greek discovery and understanding of freedom, especially the centrality of participative citizenship and amateur political deliberation. Brilliantly original, and persuasively argued, it will be required reading for all students of Greek slavery and the Western origins of freedom.--Orlando Patterson, author of Freedom, Volume 1: Freedom in the Making of Western Culture