El nacimiento de la democracia

In 508 a. C., the Athenian leader Clístenes introduced a political regime that, with the passage of time, was called democracy. The ancient democracy, today highly esteemed by the values ??on which it was founded, is, however, very different from the first Western democracies since it was direct and not representative. For almost two hundred years, the city of Athens had the first democratic government in Western history and one of the most developed of all time, a model conceived without prior design or references, in front of whose resplendent image the negative of tyranny was drawn. . Laura Sancho, Professor of Ancient History, shows us how Athenian democracy emerged and evolved, what challenges it faced over almost two centuries and how it was transformed to overcome them. The Athenian system favored participation without neglecting the control mechanisms of power, ensured the freedom of citizens without forgetting respect for the law and promoted political equality without renouncing to use the merits of the leaders. The birth of democracy is a necessary reading to understand what ideas and mechanisms made a government of the people possible. An essential work to know our past and reflect on our present.