Abstract

While the American electorate is being roiled by a series of high-profile court cases that examine accountability among politicians, and legal minds are grappling with the question of whether the president of the United States even counts as an “officer” of the same, Melissa Lane has delivered a masterful study on the historical origins of these notions. Of Rule and Office: Plato’s Ideas of the Political explores the concepts of rule and office as they were conceived by the pioneers of democracy in Athens and their greatest political theorist, Plato.The book casts Plato as a political theorist whose central preoccupation is the famous political conundrum articulated by Juvenal: “Who will watch the watchmen?” His... Read More.