Ancient and Modern Democracy

In the contemporary Western world, everyone is a democrat. This represents a remarkable change in comparison with the situation prevailing 150 years ago, made possible in part by the drastic reduction of the elements of popular participation present in the original Greek conception of democracy and ideologically assisted by the spread of a theory justifying that reduction. (...) The lectures I delivered in the United States of America in 1972, which form the core of this book, were expressly directed against elitist theory. As I already stated in the original introduction, I write as a professional historian, not as a political scientist or theorist. I have attempted to develop, dialectically, a discourse between the conception of the ancient Greeks and modern conceptions within the limits possible in a discussion of two radically different worlds, in the belief that each society can help us understand another society.
Author: Moses I. Finley