Paul Cartledge

thumb|Paul Cartledge Paul Anthony Cartledge (born 24 March 1947) is a British ancient historian and academic. From 2008 to 2014, he was the A. G. Leventis Professor of Greek Culture at the University of Cambridge. He had previously held a personal chair in Greek history at Cambridge. He is currently Emeritus A. G. Leventis Professor of Greek Culture at the University of Cambridge and a Global Distinguished Professor at NYU. Quotes Democracy: A Life (2016) Suppose one were to argue that what the ancient Greeks — or at least the ancient Athenians — understood both practically and symbolically by demokratia was something much more like Lenin's revolutionary Bolshevik slogan 'the dictatorship of the proletariat'. Or, conversely, that what the average citizen of a modern democracy takes democracy essentially or substantively to be would have been dubbed, more or less dismissively or contemptuously, by a convinced ideological democrat of ancient Athens as — at best — disguised oligarchy. Prologue History — or rather historiography, the writing of history — is nothing without sources. For, when lacking them, it is historical fiction, if not at best a historical novel. Not that the metaphor of 'sources' — pristine springs of relevant and otherwise valuable evidence gushing forth unbidden, unsullied — is an entirely innocent one. In order for evidence to count, it has to be, as Charles Darwin once put it, either for or against some theory, and theories, at least in the humanities, tend to be value-laden, if not overburdened with partisanship. 1. Sources, Ancient and Modern External links Category:Historians from England Category:Academics from England Category:University of Cambridge alumni Category:University of Cambridge faculty Category:New York University faculty Category:People from London Category:1947 births Category:Living people