The Athenians invented democracy – and as they grappled with the implications, they also invented democratic political theory. By reconstruing Protagoras the sophist, Thucydides the historian, and Democritus the cosmologist in the context of political developments and contemporary scientific, literary, and philosophical works, Cynthia Farrar's seminal study reveals the emergence of a distinctive and still cogent understanding of democratic order. All three thinkers wrestled with democracy's insistence on separating political from social identity and status. Unlike Plato and Aristotle, they constructed democratic theories that were genuinely democratic: addressed to citizens, and inviting them to interpret what their own and collective well-being demands in the world as it is. In a new introduction, Farrar makes the case for the continued relevance of the ideas explored in this book by recounting her own attempts to adapt Athenian structures of democratic citizenship and to reinterpret their democratic theory for the modern world.

'Challenges the widespread view that the early Greeks failed to develop a theory of democracy … A powerful book on a topic of major significance.' W. R. Connor, American Historical Review
'This engrossing, valuable book provides an instructive account of the political thought of three major intellectual figures of fifth-century Greece.' J. R. Wallach, The American Political Science Review

Cynthia Farrar is an independent scholar and civic entrepreneur. She is the author of articles on various aspects of ancient and modern democratic theory and practice. Her research has fueled groundbreaking work with Yale, New Haven's Community Foundation, and her production company, Purple States. Through democratically structured partnerships between communities and institutions, face-to-face deliberations, video storytelling, and a Civic Leagues structure for local engagement, she has renewed inclusive democratic citizenship.