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Incredibly Relevant to Our Times, When Democracy is Struggling
I really enjoyed Prof Garland's "Greece and Rome: An Integrated History of the Ancient Mediterranean", which was a really useful and innovative approach to understanding the two closely-linked cultures, something you don't usually see as most academics specialize in one or the other.

This course felt so relevant to our current global political woes as it made explicit reference and comparison to the rise of Trump in the US, and various struggles of democratic regimes around the world to handle the burden of governing in our increasingly complex and integrated global society. It's one thing for the Athenians with just 50,000 citizens and 200,000 slaves make decisions via direct democracy, but that model cannot work for 250 million Americans, and of course global geopolitical forces no longer respect borders, so the constant frustrations that citizens feel about their governments and feelings of apathy/disenfranchisement are understandable but perhaps inevitable.

As I was listening to this audiobook, living in the UK, Boris Johnson resigned over a series of scandals that eroded his support within the Tory party. He was succeeded by Liz Truss, who lasted a mere 45 days in office before being ousted due to an ill-conceived set of unfunded tax cuts. As of yesterday Rishi Sunak is the new PM, and while his wealth and privilege (partly due to his wife) may make it hard for him to credibly understand the plight of the have-nots, at least his background at Goldman Sachs and hedge funds and schooling at Stanford will perhaps translate to some basic financial knowledge. The Athenians would have felt no qualms about having someone with such an elite and wealthy pedigree, though in our modern age we do question such a background.