Thomas L. Dynneson

This book focuses on the development of civism as it contributed to Ancient Greek culture, and helped shape the psychology of citizenship in the Western World The strength of this work is in its interdisciplinary examination of those trends and influences that combined to give new insights into the rise and fall of democracy in the ancient polis of Athens. The author presents an extensive description of the intellectual forces that attracted "international" scholars and teachers to Athens, who in turn established important schools of higher learning as they labored to develop and advance the study of rhetoric and philosophy as competing alternative approaches for addressing the perceived weaknesses of the democratic system. This volume is an ideal supplement for instruction in courses in classical history, political science, philosophy, history of Western education, and advanced foundations of education. The second half of this texts focuses of the life and the times of the great Greek philosophers of ancient Athens.