A History of Trust in Ancient Greece

“This is a fresh, highly intelligent, and well-reasoned take on institutions and social practices, public and private, in the world of the Greek city-states. Steven Johnstone shows that the bias in the classical Greek world was toward personal forms of trust, whereas in modernity we are biased toward impersonality. There is no other book that covers this terrain. Johnstone’s surprising and convincing insights are especially relevant given the collapse of a supposedly bulletproof system of impersonal trust in the economic crash of 2008.”

“Attempts to characterize economic life in ancient Greece often suffer under the weight of the past century of scholarly polemic. Johnstone’s treatment of the topic avoids the pitfall entirely. His refreshing and highly accessible contemplation of the ‘heap of evidence’ related to ancient economics and politics welcomes readers from the first page, introducing newcomers to the topic while offering plenty to challenge the specialist.”

“A History of Trust in Ancient Greece is an ambitious and thought-provoking project that asks important questions with significant implications for our understanding of ancient Greek politics and economics. Johnstone reconstructs a diverse set of ancient practices and the social logic that grounds them from an impressively wide array of sources, and each chapter is full of gems—unfamiliar documents, novel interpretations, unexpected collocations, provocative claims—that offer an extremely valuable contribution to our knowledge of the ancient Greeks’ mental world. A fascinating and exciting book.”

“Highly recommended.”