The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Republic

An epilogue chapter to this book discusses the influence of the Roman Republic (or notions of the Republic) on the American and French revolutions. Certainly, ideas, as often as not misplaced or erroneous, about an ideal Roman Republic have influenced history and world politics for hundreds of years; and continue today as an American President tries to install a democratic process in Iraq founded on the same ideals. Not that the notions about the Roman Republic were always wrong, but many of the modern ideas it has engendered were based on idealistic interpretations of modern statesmen influenced as much by...