Historians are used to studying the origins of war. The rebuilding in the aftermath of war is a subject that - at least in the case of Athens - has received far less attention. Along with the problems of reconstructing the economy and replenishing the population, the problem of renegotiating political consensus was equally acute.

Athens after the Peloponnesian War, first published in 1986, undertakes a radically new investigation into the nature of Athenian political groups. The general model of 'faction' provided by political anthropology provides an indispensable paradigm...