Status Updates From مواطنون وسادة: التاريخ الاج...

Hmm intro is pulling me straight in

Atheners hadden een woord, “isegoria”, dat niet enkel “freedom of speech” betekende, maar eerder “equality of public speech.” De vrijheid van meningsuiting zoals wij die kennen heeft te maken met de afwezigheid van inmenging in ons recht om te spreken. Gelijkheid van meningsuiting zoals de Atheners het begrepen had te maken met het ideaal van actieve politieke participatie door arme en werkende mensen.

Erg boeiend inleidend stuk mbt het theoretisch kader, over het belang van het contextualiseren en historiseren van politieke theorie, en met behoorlijk wat aandacht voor sociale relaties

"If we abstract a political theory from its historical context, we in effect assimilate it to our own."

"It is in the context of history that theory […] enters the world of human practice and social interaction."

Four chapter: The Middle Ages.
The author finally brings home the evolution of western European societies from the Roman Empire demise to the establishment of Feudalism. In the process a bunch of theologists and thinkers elaborate the justification of property, state and church. Initially Augustine with the give unto Caesar etc. followed by Thomism, the realms of dominium and divine; and the opposition of Marsillius.

Third Chapter "From Polis to Empire" deepens the transition from Aristotle to Alexandre and the philosopher's justification for oligarchy. Next the influence of Epicureans and Stoics in the foundations of the Rome empire, its rise and fall, and at the centre of it ... The characteristic aspiration of the Roman aristocracy was cum dignitate otium (leisure with dignity). Enter Cicero, and afterwards Paul and Augustine

Second chapter "the Ancient Greek Polis" takes the reader on a trip throughout several concepts twenty five centuries old, on the Polis, oikos, demes, teches, isonomia, to conform democracy and the response to it from pro oligarchy sophists and philosophers. Enter stage right Protagoras, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle.
Ms Wood, immerses from the plays and tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides to the thinkers.

In the 1st chapter Ms Meiksins establishes: the subject of this book is a very particular mode of political thinking that emerged in the very particular historical conditions of ancient Greece and developed over two millennia in Europe and its colonial outposts.
Her method is the 'historical materialism': human beings enter into relations with each other and nature for their own survival and social reproduction.