Both a farmer and a professor of Greek, Hanson locates the source of our political and personal values in ancient Greek culture. He reminds us that the society that invented limited democracy, autonomy for the individual, and military and judicial preservation of property was motivated to do so all for the sake of the small farmer. The author finds a parallel in the contemporary American relationship between government and agriculture, especially as we move further and further from an economy based on land use and as greater and greater heaps of our wealth go to support a monstrous government and standing army, just as in ancient Greece.