Never has the story of the making of the world's first democracy had more to say to us than now. Yet, until now, there has been no modern life of Pericles, the leading statesman and general of Athens in the fifth century B.C. Donald Kagan, a renowned classical historian, brings Pericles to life against the grand and turbulent background of his times. This powerful study in political greatness sheds new light on the eternal power of ideas, the role of personality, and the uses of reason, risk, and tension in public life.