Synopses & Reviews
A reconsideration of the first modern historian and his methods from a renowned scholarThe grandeur and power of Thucydides' The Peloponnesian War have enthralled readers, historians, and statesmen alike for two and a half millennia, and the work and its author have had an enduring influence on those who think about international relations and war, especially in our own time. In Thucydides, Donald Kagan, one of our foremost classics scholars, illuminates the great historian and his work both by examining him in the context of his time and by considering him as a revisionist historian.
Thucydides took a spectacular leap into modernity by refusing to seek explanations for human behavior in the will of the gods, or even in the will of individuals, looking instead at the behavior of men in society. In this context, Kagan explains how The Peloponnesian War differs significantly from other accounts offered by Thucydides' contemporaries and stands as the first modern work of political history, dramatically influencing the manner in which history has been conceptualized ever since.
Synopsis
The grandeur and power of Thucydides' The Peloponnesian War have enthralled readers, historians, and statesmen alike for two and a half millennia, and the work and its author have had an enduring influence on those who think about international relations and war, especially in our own time. In Thucydides, Donald Kagan, one of our foremost classics scholars, illuminates the great historian and his work both by examining him in the context of his time and by considering him as a revisionist historian.
Thucydides took a spectacular leap into modernity by refusing to seek explanations for human behavior in the will of the gods, or even in the will of individuals, looking instead at the behavior of men in society. In this context, Kagan explains how The Peloponnesian War differs significantly from other accounts offered by Thucydides' contemporaries and stands as the first modern work of political history, dramatically influencing the manner in which history has been conceptualized ever since.
Synopsis
Kagan, one of the foremost classics scholars, illuminates the historian Thucydides and his greatest work, "The Peloponnesian War," both by examining him in the context of his time and by considering him as a revisionist historian.
Synopsis
The bestselling author of The Peloponnesian War examines Thucydides as the first modern historian. Donald Kagan's magisterial history of the Peloponnesian War is recognized as a landmark of classical scholarship. Now, Kagan-one of the most respected classical historians in the world-turns his attention from one of the greatest conflicts in history to the author who so magnificently chronicled it: Thucydides, the first truly modern historian. This study offers readers a remarkable opportunity to experience one great historian engaging another across the centuries, in a work that is at once an engrossing voyage of discovery, a moving tribute, and a revelatory meditation on the practice of history and its value in human affairs.
About the Author
Donald Kagan, Sterling Professor of Classics and History at Yale University, is an authority on ancient Greek history and culture and a scholar of diplomatic history. He is the author of many books on ancient and military history and the coeditor of two bestselling textbooks on world history and Western civilization.