More clearly than any previous work on the subject, Michael Palmer's Love of Glory and the Common Good defines the relationship between Periclean democracy and the decline in Athenian political life that followed the death of Pericles. The author elaborates upon the views of Thucydides, who saw the subsequent tyrannical rule of Alcibiades and the accompanying disintegration of Athenian political life as a logical consequence of the defects in the speeches and deeds that Pericles used to inspire the Athenian people. With careful attention to details in the order and structure of Thucydides' narrative, Palmer shows this historian as a political thinker of the first rank who deserves the same careful study accorded to Plato and Aristotle.

"Love of Glory provides interesting arguments. . . . There are valuable insights . . ." - Canadian Journal of Political Science

"Scholars seeking to understand why democracies have thrived and how they have been undermined can profit from Love of Glory and the Common Good." - The Review of Politics

". . . many clever insights. . . . This is a good book." - Political Studies Review

"The book is often incisive and stimulates reaction and deserves to be added to the Thucydides stable." - The Classical Review

"Palmer has what art critics would call a 'good eye,' ability, shared by too few Thucydidean scholars." - Ethics: An International Journal of Social, Political, and Legal Philosophy