Thucydides: The Reinvention of History

Exploring a War Through the Eyes of an Historian 22 February 2020 - Berri I guess it was time for me to read some non-fiction, since I have been reading quite a few fiction works of late (though I generally don’t put the ancient works that I read into the category of non-Fiction, namely because in m......more

Thucydides' book transcends history. It is not great because of the history it is telling; it is great for how he tells his story. Kagan dumbs Thucydides’ book down by falsely thinking of it as primarily a history book. That is a misreading on what Thucydides accomplishes. There is a universal natur......more

This was a very solid history of the war. It sometimes didn’t seem to deliver on its promise of focusing on the Thucydides’ new approach to history but, over time, Kagan tells us where Thucydides personal biases affected his judgments about Athenian leaders and strategic decisions.......more