The Republic vs Ancient States and Empires
Both counted from their full texts, the same way, on the same day.
1,186words between them — 5 min of it
The Republic is longer — 216,788 words against 215,602 for Ancient States and Empires, a difference of 1,186 words or about 5 min of extra reading. The Republic is the harder read, at grade 11 against 10.4.
SOURCE·Project Gutenberg full texts·both editions counted the same way·REVIEWED JUL 2026
Side by side
| The Republic | Ancient States and Empires | |
|---|---|---|
| Author | Plato | Lord, John |
| Words | 216,788 | 215,602 |
| Reading time at 250 wpm | 14h 27m | 14h 22m |
| Unique words | 10,436 | 13,298 |
| Sentences | 8,557 | 10,896 |
| Average sentence length | 25.3 words | 19.8 words |
| Reading grade | 11 | 10.4 |
| Reading ease | 61.3 | 55.6 |
| Long words | 10.2% | 14.1% |
Highlighted cells are the larger figure — except reading ease, where higher means easier.
SOURCE·Project Gutenberg full texts·both editions, same counting rule·REVIEWED JUL 2026
How this is worked out
- Both texts are counted the same way, from the same source, with Gutenberg's header and licence footer struck first.
- The gap is stated in words and then in time at 250 words a minute — the rate is printed because a duration without one cannot be checked.
- Difficulty is compared on Flesch–Kincaid grade, which reads sentence and word length only. It cannot see irony or dialect, so treat it as a measure of surface, not of effort.
gap = |216,788 − 215,602| = 1,186 words 1,186 ÷ 250 wpm = 5 min of extra reading
The second question
Which is longer, The Republic or Ancient States and Empires?
The Republic is longer — 216,788 words against 215,602 for Ancient States and Empires, a difference of 1,186 words or about 5 min of extra reading. The Republic is the harder read, at grade 11 against 10.4.
Colophon
Both figures computed from Project Gutenberg plain-text editions — ebook no. 1497 and no. 27114 — and from no other source. Neither book’s text is set on this site.
SOURCE·Project Gutenberg full texts·US public domain·REVIEWED JUL 2026
Word counts and reading levels are computed from a specific public-domain edition and will differ from other editions and from other counting methods — see the method page.
