The Birth of Politics: Eight Greek and Roman Political Ideas and Why They Matter

"[An introduction] to the foundations of Western political thought, from the Greeks, who invented democrary, to the Romans, who created a republic and then transformed it into an empire...[Lane] focuses on eight political ideas from the Greco-Roman world that are especially influential today...and describes how the ancient formulations of these ideas often challenge widely held modern assumptions"--From publisher description on book jacket.