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Western Republicanism and the Oriental PrinceByPatricia Springborg
Patricia Springborg takes as the centre of her history of Western politics kingship insteadof the city state, Egypt and Mesopotamia instead of Greece and Rome, and obliges us tolook at the Greco–Roman West in a Hellenistic and Nilotic perspective. The result is a
 
brilliant inversion of what she considers to be a perversion of history, and may wellbecome a classic of post–liberal or neo–liberal thinking.
-- J . G . A . Pocock , Johns Hopkins University 
A bold book ... Western Republicanism and the Oriental Prince is a call to modernhistoriography to be more open–minded on the one hand, and more sceptical on theother.′ 
-- Times Higher Education Supplement 
From the Publisher:
The East/West divide seems to be as old as history itself, the roots of Orientalism and anti-Semitism lying far beyond the origins of modern Western imperialism.The very project of Western classical republicanism had its darker side: to purloin the legacy of the Greeks, distancing them from Eastern systems deemed "despotic" and "other."Western Republicanism and the Oriental Prince is a thoroughly revisionist book, challengingboth the West's comfortable view of its own political evolution and its negative stereotypes of non-Western systems.Not only did these stereotypes serve to legitimate early modern European nation-statesstruggling for an identity, but they also served to justify slavery and other forms of dominationover subject peoples.Drawing upon archaeological and epigraphic evidence, Springborg discusses theMesopotamian and ancient Egyptian contribution of political forms and cultic institutions toclassical Greco-Roman civilization, an Eastern legacy to the West that has long been obscuredfor political reasons.A different reading of the foundation myths of Athens and Rome and of certain texts of Platoand Aristotle, as well as the writings of Herodotus, Isocrates, Plutarch, and Diodorus Siculus,permits us to restore possible lines of affiliation.Springborg demonstrates that Renaissance thought, long believed to have ushered in theWestern classical republican tradition, demonstrates a curious ambivalence toward powerfulEastern systems, which it viewed with fascination as much as fear.The great divide between Western democracy and Oriental despotism, which post Reformationthought has set in stone, was not yet sedimented in the Renaissance. This major new study willbe of interest to students of political history and theory, Middle Eastern studies, and East-Westrelations. "
 
Table of Contents:
Acknowledgements.Introduction.
Part I. The Greek Polis Versus the ′Great King′ 
1. Pluralistic Structures and State Power.2. Greeks and Barbarians, Freedom and Slavery.3. Ionian Historia and Kulturgeschichte.4. Polybius, on Monarchy, Freedom and Tyranny.5. Patronage, Magnificence and Title to Rule.6. Plato and the Egyptian Story.7. Hesiod and Oriental Cosmogonies.8. Foundation Myths and their Modes.9. Philological Evidence: Gods, Goddesses and Place Names.10. Herodotus, Diodorus, Isocrates and the Historical Record.
Part II. Renaissance Republicanism and the Eastern Marcher Lord
1. Republic and Empire.2. Aristotelian Republicanism or Renaissance Platonism?.3. The Roman Legacy: Justice, Peace, Harmony and Grandezza.4. Machiavelli on Hellenistic Expansionism and Economic Needs.5. Machiavelli, the Marcher Lords and War.6. Machiavelli and Polybius on the Predatory and Personalistic State.7. Polybius and Machiavelli on Patronage and Corruption.
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