You can keep the spirit of litfest going all year by downtown loading the printers row app where you can fine all of the Chicago Tribune premium books content, free did downed ebooks and the complete litfest scud all. Download today and get five dollars off merchandize. Todays program will be broadcastlift on cspan2s booktv. We ask you to use the microphone to your right to ask questions. We ask that you silence your cell phones and turn off your camera flashes. Please welcome reporter from the Chicago Tribune and todays sir interviewer. Talk to us. His public,ty defender, hoyt have chicago iconic newspaper. Thank you both for being here for this conversation. Lets get started by talking about your personal connections to the stories you are tellingful both of you have given birth to stories you have personal connections to, so what led to these topics . Start out, natalie. Sure. So, im a chicago native. I went away to school, work other places, moved back here about ten years ago, and
Undivided past. Joining us on the tv is politics professor at princeton. Shes written a new book called the birth of politics eight greek and roman ideas and why they matter today. Professor were the greeks and romans successful politicians . They were. They managed in different cities date to develop the worlds first democracy and they that they produced works of art and literature great works of architecture and Political Institutions into voting for example which remains fundamental and the romans of course were for 500 years and in the empire for another 500 said depending on the nature of success they have a lot to offer. But for some of the similarities between the two clicks that is an interesting question. They emphasized the role of the election for the people studying the terms of legitimacy so thats true in the greek democracies and the Roman Republic so for example no law could be passed without the assemblies we think about the eu meet in rome in the senate for example but
Of Civil Service so a lot of order purecratic functions, running the city harbors, establishing the weights and measures. Those things were staffed by ordinary people who were put into position by lottery. But one of the things i argue is that sometimes modern political theorists exaggerate that too far. They sometimes people say they ran everything by lottery, and there was no division between rich and poor. The poor did everything. And thats actually an overstatement. Actually the athennians had certain roles which by law or custom were reserved for the rich but the poor could still hold the rich accountable and thats that able to control the rich and hold them accountable that i think really account ares to the great powers the athennian people. Host one thing you talk about in your book is some of the things that modern politics has derived from both the greeks and in the romans, and one of the things is virtue. What do you mean by that . Guest so, virtue is the idea that well in g
There is a few square misses in the aftermath but essentially bad and that i write about the hellenistic period under alexanders generals and at the same time you have the rice of the Roman Republic also arguably established in 510 and i am glad new institutions are being formed and new versions of the tribunes of the plebs and other new roman institutions until essentially it is extinguished with a battle in 20 or 25 years before the birth of christ. Ive read about the early centuries of the roman empire after the birth of christ. Host another one of the ideas, why they matter today according to professor melissa lane is cosmopolitans. Guest this is very interesting because the greeks, politics is really something that took place in the city state bounded by the citys walls and the citys laws. What happens partly with this breakdown with greek city states and the rise about xander the great andes empires and the hellenistic. They start to get empires based in egypt based in macedonia
Find a way to talk about something that might seem dry otherwise, which is that i think we are thinking better when we are reading than at any other time in our lives that we are more intelligent while we are in the act of reading, we are triggered. We are made better by the act of reading. It kicks us out of the torpor of a nonreading existence and we make associations. We trot imagery in our minds in a way that we dont when we are not reading. We are roused as we read and of course that is a step from arousal, simply recognizing that kind of a process to some and i think weve kind of forgotten. You hear a lot of people joke about it occasionally, but i wanted to take the metaphor as far as it could be taken and i do in the book and i would tell you more about that but literature is the place where you talk about the things you cannot or will not taken any other precinct of human discourse including light ratings on television. Live readings on television. Yes, sir. So because you hav