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How to Think about War: An Ancient Guide to Foreign Policy by Thucydides Speeches from The History of the Peloponnesian War Selected, translated, and introduced by Johanna Hanink Princeton University Press, 2019 Hardcover, 336 pages Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers SeriesI had not read any of the releases in Princeton University Press’ Ancient Wisdom “How […]
S. N. Jaffe has an article at the War on the Rocks site titled “The Risks and Rewards of Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War“ that should be helpful to anyone attempting to read or write about the war. Jaffe is the author of Thucydides on the Outbreak of War: Character and Contest, a study […]
Nemesis: Alcibiades and the Fall of Ancient Athens by David StuttardHarvard University Press: April 2018Hardcover, 400 pages From the inside book flap: Alcibiades was one of the most dazzling figures of the Golden Age of Athens. A ward of Pericles and a friend of Socrates, he was spectacularly rich, bewitchingly handsome and charismatic, a skilled […]
I received a nice note from a teacher in Zimbabwe (“somewhat isolated from the academic world,” as they put it) commenting that my posts on Thucydides’ The Peloponnesian War has helped them and it has paid off for their students. That note, along with other nice comments from students reading the book and finding help […]
A few years ago, Dr. James Lacey, professor of Strategic Studies at the Marine Corps War College, contacted me about my series of posts on Thucydides. It was and remains one of the high points in blogging for me. So I wanted to share a recent article of his that looks at the difficulty in […]
Starting Monday on BBC 4 Radio’s “Book at Bedtime” series, the book will be Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War, read by David Horovitch and abridged by Tom Holland. And what an abridgment, since the total air time will be an hour and fifteen minutes. I have no idea what it will be like, but […]
Last week BBC Radio 4’s program “In Our Time” featured a great discussion of Thucydides, his writing, and his role as historian. I don’t know how long this link will remain active so I recommend listening to it soon (although many of their previous episodes are available in their archives). If you’re interested in reading […]
After Thermopylae: The Oath of Plataea and the End of the Graeco-Persian Wars by Paul Cartledge Emblems of Antiquity series Oxford University Press, 2013 ISBN: 9780199747320 Paul Cartledge’s name has been mentioned on this blog several times—he is the A. G. Leventis Professor of Greek Culture in the Faculty of Classics at the University of […]
I recently discovered the Chief of U.K. Defence Staff’s Recommended Reading [Note: link not currently working] site and have been browsing through it. One book stood out since it addresses one of my favorites: Thucydides on Strategy [ditto] by Athanassios G. Platias and Konstantinos Koliopoulos. This slim volume shows that the theory of grand strategy […]
“How shall we call such a thinking man as Thucydides? The word ‘historian’ is somehow not satisfactory.” Leo Strauss, Lecture 17 “Neither historians nor political scientists can deal with the complexity of true strategy and statecraft. Thucydides does so because his narrative is literature, and literature does not restrict itself. It can say anything that […]
The lectures/recordings on this course can be found at the center’s site. What follows are some of my notes on topics I found of interest in these recordings. I don’t pretend to cover everything he discusses in the lectures and my quotes are close but may not be exact. His class uses the Rex Warner […]
The lectures/recordings on this course can be found at the center’s site. What follows are some of my notes on topics I found of interest in these recordings. I don’t pretend to cover everything he discusses in the lectures and my quotes are close but may not be exact. His class uses the Rex Warner […]
The lectures/recordings on this course can be found at the center’s site. What follows are some of my notes on topics I found of interest in these recordings. I don’t pretend to cover everything he discusses in the lectures and my quotes are close but may not be exact. His class uses the Rex Warner […]
The lectures/recordings on this course can be found at the center’s site. What follows are some of my notes on topics I found of interest in these recordings. I don’t pretend to cover everything he discusses in the lectures and my quotes are close but may not be exact. His class uses the Rex Warner […]
The lectures/recordings on this course can be found at the center’s site. What follows are some of my notes on topics I found of interest in these recordings. I don’t pretend to cover everything he discusses in the lectures and my quotes are close but may not be exact. His class uses the Rex Warner […]
Recently The Leo Strauss Center began providing audio recordings of many of his lectures. I saw a listing for Thucydides and decided to listen to them during my commute. This course was offered during the 1972-73 academic year at St. John’s College in Annapolis. Strauss died later in 1973 but it’s clear to hear his […]
On October 8th [2008], Victor Davis Hanson spoke at Biola University on Thucydides: Understanding the Pelopenessian War and the principles which translate from a study of this ancient Greek historian to the modern political-cultural sphere. I meant to listen to this before I read Thucydides. Failing that, I meant to listen to Hanson’s talk while […]
(Update): None of the links appear to be working. I’ll update again if I can find copies of these posts. For anyone that followed my rambling posts on Thucydides, I wanted to point out a new blog titled StratBlog, that chronicles and supplements a seminar at Bard College. The syllabus2 looks interesting and I’ve enjoyed […]
Exiled Thucydides knewAll that a speech can sayAbout Democracy,And what dictators do,The elderly rubbish they talkTo an apathetic grave;Analysed all in his book,The enlightenment driven away,The habit-forming pain,Mismanagement and grief:We must suffer them all again. (W. H. Auden, from “September 1, 1939”) I did it. And I didn’t take an entire season to do it, […]
Map of ancient Greece But the Lacedæmonians, not only in this but in many other things, were most commodious enemies to the Athenians to war withal. For being of most different humours; the one swift, the other slow; the one adventurous, the other timorous; the Lacedæmonians gave them great advantage, especially when their greatness was […]