ePub From Bull Run to Appomattox: The Recollections of a Confederate Army Trooper of Company 'a; ' Sixth Virginia Cavalry During the American Civil War by Luther W. Hopkins in History

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The controversial thesis at the center of this study is that; despite the importance of slavery in Athenian society; the most distinctive characteristic of Athenian democracy was the unprecedented prominence it gave to free labor. Wood argues that the emergence of the peasant as citizen; juridically and politically independent; accounts for much that is remarkable in Athenian political institutions and culture.From a survey of historical writings of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; the focus of which distorted later debates; Wood goes on to take issue with recent arguments; such as those of G.E.M. de Ste Croix; about the importance of slavery in agricultural production. The social; political and cultural influence of the peasant-citizen is explored in a way which questions some of the most cherished conventions of Marxist and non-Marxist historiography. This book will be of great interest to ancient historians; classicists; anthropologists and political theorists; as well as to a wider reading public.