Books, Arts & Manners: Closer to Perfection

Pericles of Athens and the Birth of Democracy, Donald Kagan (Free Press, 302 pp., $22.50)

GIBBON conceived of “civilization” not merely as any stable system of beliefs, powers, and artifacts, but as a very specific order of institutionalized ideas and amenities embracing all features of life. Taking that definition of civilization, we cannot go further back in history than Athens in the Age of Pericles, the subject of Donald Kagan’s latest work.