Introduction -- The Republic : contexts and projects -- The centrepiece -- Some dubious Platonic autobiography -- Socrates : engagement and detachment -- The projects of The Republic -- Education, Sparta and the politeia tradition -- Athens, democracy and freedom -- Democratic entanglements -- Democracy and rhetoric -- The laws on democracy and freedom -- Problematizing democracy -- From polarity to complexity -- Democracy, equality and freedom -- Democracy and pluralism -- Democracy and anarchy -- Democracy and knowledge -- The rule of knowledge -- Philosophy or political expertise? -- Mill and Jowett on Plato -- Architectonic knowledge -- Philosopher rulers -- Architectonic knowledge revisited -- The limitations of management -- Utopia -- Against utopia -- A question of seriousness -- A future for utopianism -- Plato's utopian realism -- The idea of community -- Epilogue : the question of fantasy -- Money and the soul -- The ethics and politics of money -- The analogy of city and soul -- The psychology of money -- Greed, power and injustice -- Taming the beast within -- Ideology -- Ideology and religion -- The noble lie -- Law and religion.