Product Description

A reconsideration of the first modern historian and his methods from a renowned scholar

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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #17188 in Books
• Published on: 2009-10-29
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 272 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780670021291
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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From Publishers Weekly
Yale professor of classics Kagan thoroughly examines Thucydides' life and work to successfully demonstrate that the Athenian historian was the first to utilize a truly professional (i.e., realistic and methodical) approach in recounting contemporary events. An unsuccessful general and a devoted adherent of Pericles, Thucydides believed that the Peloponnesian War was the most significant event in Greek history. He was determined that his study of the war, unlike more romantic or folkish histories, would stand the test of time because of his attention to detail; his comprehensive documentation includes symptoms of the mysterious plague afflicting Athens for the benefit of future generations, showing the historian's far-sighted versatility. To his credit, Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War remains a necessity in the study of international relations, military strategy and political science. Like his subject, Kagan (The Peloponnesian War) tends to minimize the impact of Herodotus on the evolution of history as a discipline, yet any such weakness is offset by the inescapable fact that if Herodotus remains the acknowledged Father of History, then Thucydides could be described as the Father of Objective History, who opened the realm of history to serious study. (Nov. 2)
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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.

Customer Reviews

The History of the Great Historian
Undoubtedly Thucydides ranks among the greatest of historians. Indeed, he probably deserves to be recognized as the founder of modern history ("modern" in this case meaning a wide-ranging, fundamentally objective analysis of events). His great work on the Peloponnesian War is unmatched in its long-reaching influence. Thucydides' depiction of the great 5th century BC war between Athens and Sparta has for more than two millenia formed the basis for viewing and understanding those events. Very likely no single other work of history has ever had such an impact in forming future perception of events. In "Thucydides: The Reinvention of History", Donald Kagan -- the pre-emininent modern historian of the Peloponnesian War -- examines Thucydides' work in light of Thucydides' own claims of cool objectivity; Kagan ably demonstrates, I believe, that inevitably the ancient Greek historian did not in fact, could not indeed, wholly maintain his objectivity, certainly understandable in the Thucydides himself was a direct participant in some of the events he described. In several cases, notably Pericles' involvement in the origin of the Peloponnesian War and the doomed Athenia expedition to Sicily, Kagan presents a strong case that Thucydides has deliberately crafted an interpretation of events that ran counter to popular perceptions and, in fact, runs counter even to the evidence that Thucydides presented in his own book.

Kagan's "Thucydides" might be viewed as a companion, with differences of emphasis, to his earlier single-volume history of the Peloponnesian War. Although much of the same ground is covered in both books, the focus is different, with the ancient historian much more in the forefront of this new volume.

A Disappointment
The book is barely over 200 pages and contains huge chunks (word for word) from Kagan's one volume history of the Great War. Since the War took place over 2000 years ago it is disturbing, in discussing what various partcipants thought or said, to find the author using such phrases as "It is inconceivable that" or "There can be no doubt that". This book will be mostly incomprehensible to the reader unfamiliar with the Great War and annoying to those who have read Kagan's previous work.