What's Wrong with Democracy? From Athenian Practice to American Worship. By Loren J. Samons II. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004. 327p. $27.50.

Loren Samons's book is a nuanced and perceptive history of classical Athenian democracy. Well organized and lucidly and convincingly written, the chapters of this book, devoted to elections and voting (Chapter 2), public finance (Chapter 3), foreign policy before and during the Peloponnesian War (Chapters 4–5), and national defense (Chapter 6), bring to light underappreciated aspects of Athens's democratic development. To offer only a few examples: Samons traces the roots of Athens's fifth- and fourth-century democracy to its sixth-century tyrannies, underscoring the important respects in which Athenian democracy came to resemble more egregious forms of tyranny. He tracks the emergence of a public treasury at Athens during the fifth century and shows how this shift in the practices and institution of property expanded both Athens's citizenry and its imperialistic tendencies over the course of the Peloponnesian War. He explores the effects of Athens's quest for empire on its domestic policies and, by way of a sustained but largely implicit contrast with Athenian militarism and foreign policy, he offers an unconventional and persuasive picture of fifth-century Sparta as less pathologically warlike than Athens.