A01=Emily Wilson
Ancient Greece
Athens
Author_Emily Wilson
Category=NHC
Category=NHD
Category=QDHA
Classics books
democracy
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
forthcoming
free speech
liberalism
Martin Luther King
Nolan
Odyssey
philosophy
politics books
Socrates
Sparta
Western thought
Product details
- ISBN 9781806492633
- Dimensions: 129 x 198mm
- Publication Date: 12 Nov 2026
- Publisher: Profile Books Ltd
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Paperback
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Socrates is revered as a man who spoke truth to power. Yet his death in 399 BC was the first time in recorded history that a democratic government condemned a person to death for their beliefs. His death was a potent symbol of free speech, and Socrates' fate has haunted Western thought ever since - a guiding influence on Plato, John Stuart Mills, Nietzsche and Martin Luther King.
In this incisive survey of philosophy and politics, renowned classicist and translator Emily Wilson unravels ancient philosophy's most enduring - and hardest - questions: why did ancient Athens execute its leading intellectual? How do democracies deal with dissent? And can our own society allow for total freedom of speech and thought?
Emily Wilson is Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Her translations of the Odyssey and the Iliad were critically acclaimed across the globe, and she is a regular contributor to the London Review of Books, the New York Times, the New Statesman and the Nation.
