In this compelling tour of the classical world, Peter Jones reveals how it is the power, scope and fascination of their ideas that makes the Ancient Greeks and Romans so important and influential today. For over 2,000 years these ideas have gripped Western imagination and been instrumental in the way we think about the world. Covering everything from philosophy, history and architecture to language and grammar, Jones uncovers their astonishing intellectual, political and literary achievements. First published twenty years ago, this fully updated and revised edition is a must-read for anyone who wishes to know more about the classics - and where they came from.

Originally published in 1969. The proverb vox populi, vox Dei first appeared in a work by Alcuin (ca. 798), who wrote that "the people [] are to be led, not followed. [] Nor are those to be listened to who are accustomed to say, 'The voice of the people is the voice of God.'" Tracing the changing meaning of the saying through European history, George Boas finds that "the people" are not an easily identifiable group. For many centuries the butt of jokes and the substance of comic relief in serious drama, the people became in time an object of pity and, later, of aesthetic appeal. Popular opinion, despised in ancient Rome, was something sought, after the French Revolution. The first essay documents the use of the titular proverb through the eighteenth century. In the next six essays, Boas attempts to determine who the people were and how writers and philosophers have regarded them throughout history. He also examines the people as the creators of literature, art, and music, and as the subject of others' artistic representations. In a final essay, he discusses egalitarianism, which has given a voice to the common person. Animating Boas's account is his own belief in the importance of the individual's voice—as opposed to the voice of the masses, which is by no means necessarily that of God or reason.

The rise of populist movements across the political spectrum poses a vital question: what role should populism play in modern democracy? In ten trenchant essays, the writers of The New Criterion examine the perils and promises of populism in Vox Populi, a new collection that marks the thirty-fifth anniversary of this critical journal. Beginning with a reflection on the problems of populism for American conservatism (George H. Nash), the essays expound broadly and deeply on populist unrest—the populist revolts of ancient Rome (Barry Strauss), the rise of popular referenda and the Brexit vote (Daniel Hannan), American populism and the legacy of H. L. Mencken (Fred Siegel), populism and the Founders’ generation (James Piereson), populism and identity (Roger Scruton), populism around the world (Andrew C. McCarthy), the birth of a new American populist movement (Victor Davis Hanson), and populism’s historical impact on the American party system (Conrad Black). The book concludes with a discussion of the struggle to keep government in the hands of a free people (Roger Kimball). Just what perils and promises are found in populist ferment may be the question of our age. Taken together, these ten essays consider “the voice of the people” in the light of history, in a collection that only The New Criterion could assemble.

A nameless and sometimes hapless narrator moves through a series of casual encounters, mostly in the Southwest, with total strangers, average people going about day-to-day, often mundane activities, but taking time to reveal to him, unprompted, their life experiences. Although he does not invite their attention, they sometimes seem desperate to share their stories with him, mostly because he’s right there, sometimes trapped by circumstance. Often funny, sometimes sad, always poignant in a way, their voices, their words open up their deeper selves, reveal both the comedy and tragedy of individual life, and expose the unique humanity behind the anonymous faces of the ordinary person. Through their candid and unselfconscious revelations, they tell a composite story of the everyday individual muddling through the vicissitudes of everyday life.

This timely and engaging book examines the rise of populism across the globe. Combining insights from linguistics, argumentation theory, rhetoric, legal theory and political theory it offers a fully integrated characterization of the form and content of populist discourse.

It was one of the most characteristic if puzzling phenomena of the later Roman Empire that the man in the street commonly engaged in open and heated debate of complex theological questions that seemingly had no immediate relevance to his daily life ... And the passionate arguments that raged in all the cities of the East did not, in every case, end with mere words, but led often to acts of anger and violence. Churchees were burned in the night, and cities were drenched in blood ... Ancient authors, borrowing their models, perhaps, from Thucydides or Tacitus, recognized the danger inherent in urban upheaval and popular unrest; but with a general disregard for the substantive issues that provoked dispute, they were inclined to attribute them simply and wholly to a natural perversity on the part of crowds that caused them to resort to violence and foster rebellion for their own sakes ...

Disease and Democracy is the first comparative analysis of how Western democratic nations have coped with AIDS. Peter Baldwin's exploration of divergent approaches to the epidemic in the United States and several European nations is a springboard for a wide-ranging and sophisticated historical analysis of public health practices and policies. In addition to his comprehensive presentation of information on approaches to AIDS, Baldwin's authoritative book provides a new perspective on our most enduring political dilemma: how to reconcile individual liberty with the safety of the community. Baldwin finds that Western democratic nations have adopted much more varied approaches to AIDS than is commonly recognized. He situates the range of responses to AIDS within the span of past attempts to control contagious disease and discovers the crucial role that history has played in developing these various approaches. Baldwin finds that the various tactics adopted to fight AIDS have sprung largely from those adopted against the classic epidemic diseases of the nineteenth century—especially cholera—and that they reflect the long institutional memories embodied in public health institutions.