Professor Eric Nelson (Harvard University)

Democracy as Meritocracy: Post-Classical Greek and the Early-Modern Rehabilitation of Popular Rule.

The most recent biennial Seeley Lectures took place in May 2024 in the McCrum Lecture Theatre in Bene't Street.

Eric Nelson of Harvard University gave the lecture series, 'Democracy as Meritocracy: Post-Classical Greek and the Early-Modern Rehabilitation of Popular Rule'.

The individual lectures were:

• Wednesday May 15: 

  “That best of all constitutions”: Reimagining Democracy from Isocrates to Dio Cassius.

• Thursday May 16: 

  “It is certainly a very ignorant thing to leave words in Greek”: (Mis)translating the Post-Classical Democrats in Early-Modern Europe.

• Tuesday May 21: 

  “Israel was a Democracy”: James Harrington, Philo of Alexandria, and the Rule of the Best.

• Thursday May 23: 

  “The wisest and most intelligent will always rule”: Democracy from Harrington to Tocqueville.