This book presents a powerful new argument for how and why the Greek city-states, including their distinctive society and culture, came to be – and why they had the highly unusual and influential form they took. After reviewing early city-state formation, and the economic underpinnings of city-state society, three key chapters examine the way the Greeks developed their unique society. The spear, scroll and pebble encapsulate the book’s core ideas.To access this information, these military and political citizens had to be able to read. Billows examines the spread of schools and literacy throughout the Greek world, showing that the male city-state Greeks formed the world’s first-known mass literate society. He concludes by showing that it was the mass-literate nature of the Greek city-state society that explains the remarkable and influential culture the classical Greeks produced.The book seeks to understand how and why the Greek city-states and their distinctive male-oriented society and culture came to be and had the highly unusual and influential form they took. After reviewing early city-state formation, and the economic growth underpinning city-state society, three key chapters examine the way the Greeks developed their unique kind of society. In the first place, city-state Greeks developed a citizen-militia military system that gave more or less equal importance to each male citizen-warrior, thereby emboldening the citizen-warriors to demand political rights. That led to the growth of collective political systems called oligarchy and democracy, in which thousands of active male citizens formed the sovereign element of the state and made political decisions through communal debate and voting. In order for such systems to function, a shared information base had to be created, and this was done by setting up public notices of laws, proposed policies, public meeting agendas, and a host of other information. To access this information citizens had to be able to read, and the final chapter examines the spread of schools for boys and consequent male literacy throughout the Greek world, showing that the city-state Greeks formed the world’s first known mass literate society. Being literate, finally, has a profound effect on the human brain’s cognitive process and capacity, as modern neuroscience has shown, and the book concludes by showing that it was the mass-literate nature of Greek city-state society that explains the remarkable and influential culture the classical Greeks produced.

The Spear, the Scroll, and the Pebble: How the Greek City-State Developed as a Male Warrior-Citizen Collective PDF

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