Peter Jones

From Socrates to Osborne

Athens in its ‘age of reason’ was also in the grip of extreme populist nationalism

issue 07 January 2017

Ex-chancellor George Osborne is planning a book to be titled The Age of Unreason. He says that ‘it will be my attempt to understand why populist nationalism is on the rise in our western democracies’. An Athenian would have been most surprised by that title’s implications.

If the ancient Greeks are famous for anything, it is for the invention of western ‘philosophy’.

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