Thucydides And The Peloponnesian War

Understanding the history of Athens in the all important years of the second half of the fifth century B.C. is largely dependent on the work of the historian Thucydides. Previous scholarship has tended to view Thucydides' account as infallible. This book challenges that received wisdom, advancing original and controversial views of Thucydides' account of the Peloponnesian War; his misrepresentation of Alcibiades and Demosthenes; his relationship with Pericles; and his views on the Athenian Empire. Cawkwell's comprehensive analysis of Thucydides and his historical writings is persuasive, erudite and an immensely valuable addition to the scholarship and criticism of a rich and popular period of Greek history.

Chronicles two decades of war between Athens and Sparta.

Presents an English translation of the Greek text which provides an account of the people and events involved in the long, fifth-century conflict between Athens and Sparta, and includes notes, a glossary, and other resources.

Masterfully crafted and surprisingly modern, "History of the Peloponnesian War" has long been celebrated as an insightful, eloquent, and exhaustively detailed work of classical Greek history. The text is also remarkable for its deep political and military dimensions, and scholars have begun to place the work alongside Sun Tzu's The Art of War and Clausewitz's On War as one of the great treatises on strategy. The perfect companion to Thucydides' impressive History, this volume details the specific strategic concepts at work within the History of the Peloponnesian War and demonstrates, through case studies of recent conflicts in Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq, the continuing relevance of Thucydidean thought to an analysis and planning of strategic operations. Some have even credited Thucydides with founding the discipline of international relations. Written by two scholars with extensive experience in this and related fields, Thucydides on Strategy situates the classical historian solidly in the modern world of war.

A monumental work unsurpassed for its brilliant description, accuracy, and penetrating insights, Thucydides' "History of the Peloponnesian War" is a spectacular eyewitness report of the war between Greece's two most powerful city-states, Athens and Sparta, as it unfolded during the fifth century B.C.The first recorded political and moral analysis of a nation's war policies, the "History" is a tragic story of virtue, ambition, and failed deterrence. All aspects of the conflict--from the battlefield strategies and the political landscape to the peoples' thoughts and feelings as the long war dragged on--are presented in startlingly vivid detail.From the treachery of Alcibiades and the disastrous invasion of Sicily to the plague that devastated Athens and Pericles' famous funeral oration, Thucydides has written more than a mere account of war. His "History" is nothing less than a classic Greek drama about the rise and fall of Athens. More than two thousand years have passed since the "History" was written, but its impact on modern politics, military strategy, and foreign relations has been timeless.

Edition of the latter part of Thucydides' account of the Sicilian Expedition that ended so catastrophically for Athens (415-413 BCE).

One of our most provocative military historians, Victor Davis Hanson has given us painstakingly researched and pathbreaking accounts of wars ranging from classical antiquity to the twenty-first century. Now he juxtaposes an ancient conflict with our most urgent modern concerns to create his most engrossing work to date, A War Like No Other. Over the course of a generation, the Hellenic city-states of Athens and Sparta fought a bloody conflict that resulted in the collapse of Athens and the end of its golden age. Thucydides wrote the standard history of the Peloponnesian War, which has given readers throughout the ages a vivid and authoritative narrative. But Hanson offers readers something new: a complete chronological account that reflects the political background of the time, the strategic thinking of the combatants, the misery of battle in multifaceted theaters, and important insight into how these events echo in the present. Hanson compellingly portrays the ways Athens and Sparta fought on land and sea, in city and countryside, and details their employment of the full scope of conventional and nonconventional tactics, from sieges to targeted assassinations, torture, and terrorism. He also assesses the crucial roles played by warriors such as Pericles and Lysander, artists, among them Aristophanes, and thinkers including Sophocles and Plato. Hanson’s perceptive analysis of events and personalities raises many thought-provoking questions: Were Athens and Sparta like America and Russia, two superpowers battling to the death? Is the Peloponnesian War echoed in the endless, frustrating conflicts of Vietnam, Northern Ireland, and the current Middle East? Or was it more like America’s own Civil War, a brutal rift that rent the fabric of a glorious society, or even this century’s “red state—blue state” schism between liberals and conservatives, a cultural war that manifestly controls military policies? Hanson daringly brings the facts to life and unearths the often surprising ways in which the past informs the present. Brilliantly researched, dynamically written, A War Like No Other is like no other history of this important war.