Politics (Books 3-5) - Aristotle

The bulk of this reading is concerned with categorizing various types of government and then discussing the differences between them.  Aristotle has three main categories: democracies, kingdoms and aristocracy.  Democracy is the rule of the many, kingdoms are rule of the one and aristocracy is the rule of a select (often wealthy) few.  He talks about various ways that a city will decided who is or who isn't a citizen and remarks that different cities require a different type of government.
Aristotle also talks about how to make the city better.  He argues that the virtue of a city will be derived from the virtue of its citizens.  He speaks at length on what will make this virtue and whether the virtue that makes someone a good man is the same virtue that makes a good citizen.  I found this striking because here today, we do very little educating on how to be a good citizen of our country.  Our children do some work on being a good 'world citizen' but beyond that the duties of a modern citizen are very little more than 1) obey the laws and 2) make sure you recycle.  This is probably not enough.
Another large element that Aristotle talks about is the strengths and weaknesses of various forms of government.  He says that 'when it is in the hands of the few, it will be a government of the rich; when it is in the hands of the many, it will be a government of the poor'.  He also argues that a blend of various governments could work well. 

But the best proof of a happy mixture of a democracy and an oligarchy is this, when a person may properly call the same state a democracy and an oligarchy.

I think you could argue that the US is in that situation right now.  I wonder if Aristotle would be happy with it?

One problem with reading Aristotle on your own is that there is so much in his writing that it makes it hard to digest it all.  Repeatedly while I was reading this, I wished that I could cover each 'book' of Politics in a group discussion or class room.  You could spend a week (or a month!) on each one and probably still have more to talk about. 
I'm sure this is a reflection of how this material first came together.  And I'm absolutely certain that this exact approach was taken in various schools and academies in centuries past.  I don't know if it is still done anywhere but I'm sure the results would be fascinating.