Table Of ContentOUPCORRECTEDPROOF–FINAL,26/8/2016,SPi
A WORLD HISTORY OF ANCIENT
POLITICAL THOUGHT
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A World History of
Ancient Political
Thought
fi
Its Signi cance and Consequences
revisedandexpandededition
ANTONY BLACK
1
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3
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To my grandchildren
Oisín, Fergus, Zoe,
As are the generations of leaves, so are those of men
(Homer, Iliad VI, 146)
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Preface
ThisbookisaboutthepoliticalthoughtofancientEgypt,Mesopotamia,Israel,
Iran, India, China, Greece, Rome, and early Christianity. It starts with the
earliest written records of political thought in Egypt and Mesopotamia and
ends with the collapse of the Han dynasty and the Western Roman empire.
Weexaminehowsacredmonarchy,statusgroups,justice,equality,andsoon
were conceived and debated in different cultures, and what if anything they
had in common. We look at official texts, signs of popular belief, and major
theorists such as Confucius, Plato, Aristotle, and Kautilya—in other words,
bothideologyandphilosophy.
Whydoweneedaworldwidestudyofancientpoliticalthought?Weneedit
becauseitwillincreaseourunderstandingofthepoliticalwaysofall civiliza-
tions,ourownandothers.Itwillrevealsomethingofthestorehouseofethical
andpoliticalideasthathasbeen,andstillis,availabletosuchpeculiarlysocial
beings as ourselves. Confucius and Plato, Aristotle and Kautilya may still
speak to us. But before we can understand what they say, we have to under-
standwhytheywroteandtheproblemstheyfaced.
Thestudyofancientpoliticalthoughtallovertheworldbothdevelopsour
understanding of history and contributes to our understanding of our own
situationsandendeavours.Thinkersfromculturesotherthanourownwiden
our range of options. They open up new possible ways of thinking about
politics.Readingthinkersoftheremoteaswellasrecentpastcanstimulateus
whenwearefacedwiththornyquestionsandharshsituations.Theyremindus
that what seems impossible may have a solution. Without a world history of
ancientpoliticalthought,politicaldiscourseisimpoverished.
Wefindthatmostmedieval,earlymodern,andmodernpoliticalideashave
rootsintheancientperiod:theMandateinChina,casteinIndia,nationhood
in Israel, democracy, liberty, and natural law in Greece and Rome, for ex-
ample.Justice,theruleoflaw,andmeritocracywerewidelyendorsed.Kautilya
and the Chinese ‘Legalists’ advocated Realpolitik and an authoritarian state.
Theconflictbetweenmightandrightwasresolvedinmanydifferentways.
Chinese,Greek,andIndianthinkersreflectedontheoriginandpurposesof
the state. The Stoics and Cicero saw humanity as a single unit. Political
philosophy, using logic, evidence, and dialectic, was invented separately in
ChinaandGreece,statecraftinChinaandIndia,politicalscienceinIndiaand
Greece.Thisbookdealswithpoliticalphilosophyandideology,religiousand
moralthought,andconstitutionaltheory.
Humans haveasinglebiologicalorigin, andtodayweall interactwithone
anotherinasingleglobalsociety,whetherwelikeitornot.Butbetweenthese
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viii Preface
two points lie very diverse histories. Nowadays it is not nations or faiths but
humanity that is in need of a story. A complete world history of political
thought, coming up to our own period of ‘globalization’, is urgently needed.
I hope one day to undertake this. If I don’t, or if I don’t do so satisfactorily,
Ihopesomeoneelsewill.
PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION
Ihaveundertakenasecondeditionbothbecauseofnewworkinthefieldand
because I became aware of shortcomings in the first edition. Yuval Harari
(2011/2014)hasarguedthatitwassharedstoriesandsharedwaysoflooking
attheworldwhichfirstbroughthumanstogetherinverylargenumbers.Itwas
this which transformed our species from one living in small groups (of say
150) into one in which millions could belong to the same network because
theyhadabasisformutualtrust.Theimplicationsofthisforthebeginningsof
politicalthoughtaremomentous.GeoffreyLloyd’scomparisonsofGreekand
Chinese philosophy and science have set a new benchmark for comparative
study, and have implications for the development of political philosophy in
thesecultures.
Chapter1, the first half of Chapter8, Chapter12, the Introduction, and
Conclusion have been completely re-written; the rest remains virtually
unchanged.
Havingtraversedsomanyfields,Icravethebenevolentreader’spardonfor
the many errors and inaccuracies which must remain. As the ancient Greek
said,‘IamgrowingoldbutIamstilllearningagreatdeal’.
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Acknowledgements
This work would have been unthinkable without the help of many scholars
whoareexpertsinfieldsofwhichIknowlittle.IamgratefultoKevinLaland
forputtingmeontherightpathinprehistory;toJulianReadeforhelpingme
with Egypt and Mesopotamia; to Nathan MacDonald for guidance on Israel;
to Anthony Parel for helping me with India; to Christopher Smith for many
suggestions on Rome. I would like above all to thank Yuri Pines for the care
withwhichhesetmerightaboutChina.(Hewasgenerousenoughtoshowme
hisEnvisioningEternalEmpire(2009)bookbeforeitwaspublished.)Without
him, I could not have dealt at all adequately with this difficult and crucial
topic. I am also grateful to John Dunn, Ron Terchek, Lisa Raphals, Melissa
Lane, Rory Cox, and Jill Harries for their suggestions; and to Richard What-
moreandtheInstituteforIntellectualHistoryattheUniversityofStAndrews
forprovidingascholarlymilieu.Noneofthesescholarsareresponsibleforthe
manyerrorsthatremain.
TheNuffieldFoundationawardedmetwosmallgrantswhichenabledmeto
travel to libraries in Britain. Brian Baxter, who was head of the Politics
Programme in the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Dundee, has
been unfailingly supportive. The inter-library loans staff of the Dundee Uni-
versityLibraryhavebeenextraordinarilyefficient.The Universitylibrariesof
StAndrewsandCambridgehavebeencourteousandhelpful.Iamgratefulto
Oxford University Press, in particular Dominic Byatt, the Politics editor, for
theirassistance.
Itisdifficulttoknowwheretobeginacknowledgingmorepersonalhelpon
a work which I have been at for so long. I was taught at the Craig School,
Windermere under Edward Hewetson, a rare man. Its motto was ‘nothing
is useful except what is honest (nihil utile nisi quod honestum)’—see below,
p. 230. I was taught at Shrewsbury by two outstanding geniuses in their
profession: Jimmy Street, who made me love Greek and Latin poetry; and
Anthony Chevenix-Trench, who introduced me to Aeschylus (whose words
havestrengthenedmeindifficulthours).
I owe to my mother’s parents, Joseph and Mary Wood, the haven of my
childhood. Debts to friends are the greater for being unspoken. My children
Steve, Tommy, Esther, Matthew, and Christopher are in my thoughts every
day.MygrandchildrenOisin,Fergus,andZoegivemehopeforthefuture.Itis
tothemthatthisbookisdedicated.Mygreatestdebtistomywife,Aileen,for
beingwithme.
