Plato and the City: A New Introduction to Plato's Political Thought - Tapa dura

A useful introduction for students. * Oxbow Book News 5, Spring 2003 * Although discernibly radical in its approach, it is an accessible volume designed for students and general readers: Pradeau summarises the relevant dialogues, transliterates Greek terms, and translates all passages quoted. [...] Concise, articulate and persuasive. * JACT Review, vol. 33 * Accessible and concise... Pradeau's book is valuable because it offers a different way into Plato's political thought than the tired question of Plato's totalitarianism. * Polis, Vol. 20 nos. 1 & 2 *

Plato and the City is a general introduction to Plato's political thought. It covers the main periods of Platonic thought, examining those dialogues that best show how Plato makes the city's unity the aim of politics and then makes the quest for that unity the aim of philosophy. From the psychological model (the city is like a great soul) to the physiological definition (the city is a living being), the reader can traverse the whole of Plato's oeuvre, and understand it as a political philosophy. The book is designed to be an undergraduate textbook but will also be of interest to scholars. It is the first English translation of Platon et la cite, published in French by Presses Universitaires de France in 1997 as part of the series Philosophies, and offers English-speaking readers access to a more unifying continental European reading of Plato than is common in UK or North American scholarship.