Melissa Lane

  • Princeton University
  • Department of Politics
  • Professor

With an A.B. summa cum laude in Social Studies from Harvard, and an M.Phil. and PhD in Philosophy from Cambridge, where she studied as a Marshall, Truman, and Phi Beta Kappa scholar, Professor Lane’s work has focused on the history of political thought and political philosophy, with distinctive strength in ancient Greek political thought while spanning both the ancients and the moderns.  This wide range is reflected in the fact that she is a contributor to both the Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Political Thought (2000), of which she was also an Associate Editor, and the Cambridge History of Twentieth-Century Political Thought (2003).

Professor Lane’s expertise in the area of ancient political theory is widely recognized, building on her books Method and Politics in Plato’s Statesman (Cambridge, 1998) and Plato’s Progeny: How Plato and Socrates still captivate the modern mind (Duckworth, 2001), and her Introduction to the Penguin Classics edition of Plato’s Republic (2007).  Professor Lane’s third book, Eco-Republic, appeared in autumn 2011 from Peter Lang in the UK and in early 2012 from Princeton University Press in the United States.  She has co-edited two volumes: A Poet’s Reich: Politics and Culture in the George Circle, Camden House (an imprint of Boydell and Brewer), 2011, co-edited with Martin A. Ruehl; and Politeia in Greek and Roman Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, 2013, co-edited with Verity Harte.