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lnatal's review
3.0
From BBC Radio 4 - Book at Bedtime:
'My work is not a piece of writing designed to meet the taste of an immediate public, but was done to last for ever,' Thucydides
Ancient Greek historian Thucydides' spellbinding first-hand account chronicles the devastating 27-year-long war between Athens and Sparta during the 5th century BC. It was a life-and-death struggle that reshaped the face of ancient Greece and pitted Athenian democracy against brutal Spartan militarism.
Thucydides himself was an Athenian aristocrat and general who went on to record what he saw as the greatest war of all time, applying a passion for accuracy and a contempt for myth admired by historians today. Looking at why nations go to war, what makes a great leader, and whether might can be better than right, he became the father of modern Realpolitik. His influence fed into the works of Machiavelli, Thomas Hobbs and the politics of the Cold War and beyond.
Thucydides' masterful account of the end of Greece's Golden Age, depicts an age of revolution, sea battles, military alliances, plague and massacre, but also great bravery and some of the greatest political orations of all time.
Today: With Spartan distrust of the rising power of Athens, is war inevitable?
1. War Begins
2. From Funerals to Plague
3. Spartan Surrender at Pylos
4. An Athenian Atrocity
5. The Beginning of the End
'My work is not a piece of writing designed to meet the taste of an immediate public, but was done to last for ever,' Thucydides
Ancient Greek historian Thucydides' spellbinding first-hand account chronicles the devastating 27-year-long war between Athens and Sparta during the 5th century BC. It was a life-and-death struggle that reshaped the face of ancient Greece and pitted Athenian democracy against brutal Spartan militarism.
Thucydides himself was an Athenian aristocrat and general who went on to record what he saw as the greatest war of all time, applying a passion for accuracy and a contempt for myth admired by historians today. Looking at why nations go to war, what makes a great leader, and whether might can be better than right, he became the father of modern Realpolitik. His influence fed into the works of Machiavelli, Thomas Hobbs and the politics of the Cold War and beyond.
Thucydides' masterful account of the end of Greece's Golden Age, depicts an age of revolution, sea battles, military alliances, plague and massacre, but also great bravery and some of the greatest political orations of all time.
Today: With Spartan distrust of the rising power of Athens, is war inevitable?
1. War Begins
2. From Funerals to Plague
3. Spartan Surrender at Pylos
4. An Athenian Atrocity
5. The Beginning of the End
beholderess's review
5.0
I have seen many reviews claiming that, although an accomplished historian, Thucydides is a dry writer. Thus I've started reading this book with some trepidation, expecting to be bored out of my mind. And indeed, the beginning was more than a little dry.
However, somewhere after the first 1/3 of the book my opinion changed. I hardly know enough of history to judge Thucydides on his accuracy on these matters, but he is certainly a talented writer. His writing is subtle, elegant and powerful, invoking a great tragedy about pride, fall and the price of power.
The effect is reached by foreshadowing, by subtly but constantly recurring themes and by the composition itself rather than colorful statements. To illustrate what I am talking about: a "pure" dispassionate historian would simply describe the events and left finding similarities between the expansion, overreach and fall of Athens and defeat of Persia earlier to the discretion of the reader. A somewhat talented author would have spelled it out explicitly and drew analogies in author's voice. But Thucydides makes Athens reference their own defeat of Persia as a justification to their deeds over and over again, even as they are about to commit the very same mistakes, both marking the similarity, underscoring dramatic irony and foretelling an inevitability of defeat.
On the same note, the passionate plea for justice followed by a few short sentences to the effect "and then they got killed" is often more powerful than a vivid description would have been.
However, somewhere after the first 1/3 of the book my opinion changed. I hardly know enough of history to judge Thucydides on his accuracy on these matters, but he is certainly a talented writer. His writing is subtle, elegant and powerful, invoking a great tragedy about pride, fall and the price of power.
The effect is reached by foreshadowing, by subtly but constantly recurring themes and by the composition itself rather than colorful statements. To illustrate what I am talking about: a "pure" dispassionate historian would simply describe the events and left finding similarities between the expansion, overreach and fall of Athens and defeat of Persia earlier to the discretion of the reader. A somewhat talented author would have spelled it out explicitly and drew analogies in author's voice. But Thucydides makes Athens reference their own defeat of Persia as a justification to their deeds over and over again, even as they are about to commit the very same mistakes, both marking the similarity, underscoring dramatic irony and foretelling an inevitability of defeat.
On the same note, the passionate plea for justice followed by a few short sentences to the effect "and then they got killed" is often more powerful than a vivid description would have been.
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