David Runciman writes:

Where democracies do seem to have the advantage, then as now, is in their ability to innovate and adapt in testing circumstances. The salient fact about the money that Russia channels from oil into its armed forces is that the institution that gets to spend it is still a lumbering, inefficient, autocratic mess that can beat up little Georgia but would have great difficulty taking on anyone its own size. The salient fact about the navy the Athenians built in the 480s was that it was technically advanced and imaginatively led, enabling them to defeat an enemy against whom they had appeared horribly overmatched. This is the strongest part of Ober’s case: democracy tends to go along with a restless desire for innovation, and it was the can-do spirit of the Athenians that gave them much of their competitive advantage.

(LRB 29 January 2009)

Princeton | paperback 342 pp. |ISBN: 9780691133478