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judyward's review
4.0
This history of the Peloponnesian War between the Greek city-states of Athens and Sparta is a grim reminder that not much has changed in political decision making from the ancient world to the news of today.
toystory242's review
2.0
*Probably 1.5 lollllll*
So I read this for class and probably comprehended half of it. There are just 50000 things going on all at once and it's so DAMN boring and dear GOD I don't even know how I made it through this. This is 600 pages of my life I'm never getting back.........and now I get to write an essay about it.......
So I read this for class and probably comprehended half of it. There are just 50000 things going on all at once and it's so DAMN boring and dear GOD I don't even know how I made it through this. This is 600 pages of my life I'm never getting back.........and now I get to write an essay about it.......
nate_b's review against another edition
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
4.75
No spoilers! You'll have to read the book yourself to find out who wins. This book taught me an enormous amount about ancient Greek warfare techniques and the depth of pride and what seems almost like sibling rivalry which was felt among the various city-states. Absolutely fascinating. I recommend the audiobook very highly. I could never have sat through this entire book on paper! But I'm so glad to have read this. It's a classic for a reason!
I could not believe how prescient some passages were, such as early on when he describes the way men twisted words to mean different things than they used to so as to justify the leadup to war. Completely fascinating. The prose is phenomenally clear. There are only a few passages where I struggled (main shortcoming of the audio format) with understanding who was speaking or whose activities were being described when the author swapped back and forth between the various players in the story.
I could not believe how prescient some passages were, such as early on when he describes the way men twisted words to mean different things than they used to so as to justify the leadup to war. Completely fascinating. The prose is phenomenally clear. There are only a few passages where I struggled (main shortcoming of the audio format) with understanding who was speaking or whose activities were being described when the author swapped back and forth between the various players in the story.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Child death, Death, Genocide, Hate crime, Rape, Sexual violence, Slavery, Violence, Xenophobia, Trafficking, Grief, Suicide attempt, Colonisation, War, Classism, and Deportation
spacestationtrustfund's review
3.0
This review is of the translation by Rex Warner.
The blockade was one of the longest and most destructive sieges in recorded history. The city endured 900 days of starvation, hypothermia, torture, arrests, survival cannibalism, snipers, constant battering at the walls of Leningrad, and despair so deep that it seemed like nobody would make it out the other side. Towards the start of the siege Hitler had ordered his armies to erase Leningrad from the face of the Earth. He had said in no uncertain terms that he had no interest in saving the lives of the civilian population. With no way out of the city, bodies were left in the streets to freeze or rot. There was no way to bury the dead. Sickness ran rampant. People ate rats, pets, shoe leather, wood, each other. Over 800 thousand people in Leningrad died in those 2 and a half years.
In Leningrad: State of Siege, Michael Jones wrote:
The Spartan siege of Athens (approx. 404 BCE) would be the closing act of the Peloponnesian War. Athens had been on the defensive since suffering a major defeat at Syracuse in 413 BCE, but it was after the naval battle of Aegospotami in 405 BCE that a Spartan victory was considered inevitable from both sides. The Spartan forces, not particularly known for their naval prowess, had increased the quality of their fleets, as well as garnering support from Persia. At the battle at Aegospotami, only 10 of the 180 Athenian ships survived. When the Spartan armies blockaded the city by land and by sea and began their prolonged assault on the walls, Athens was able to endure the onslaught—until the citizens ran out of supplies. The next few months were brutal, as rampant starvation caused mass deaths of Athenians. Athens attempted to negotiate terms of surrender to preserve as much of the city as possible. Some of Sparta's allies wanted to see the city destroyed, but the ultimate peace agreement was surprisingly generous: Athens would be allowed to continue to exist, provided it followed Sparta's lead in diplomacy and war; the walls and fortifications around the water would be destroyed, along with the Athenian navy. The conclusion of the war sealed Athens's fate, ending any chance of Athens becoming a major imperial power. The resulting power vacuum would later be filled by Macedonia, and Sparta's own hold on dominance over other Greek city-states would be short-lived.
Leningrad—Saint Petersburg, now—survived. 900 days of some of the worst conditions of one of the worst periods of human history, and the city survived. When the Nazis took the city, they nearly burned it to the ground. But the winter ended. The spring thaw came. And the city survived.
[Sparta voice] i want that twink ObliteratedThe Siege of Leningrad, known in Russian as блокада Ленинграда and in German as the Leningrader Blockade, began less than three months after Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union. On 8 September 1941 the Wehrmacht blockaded the last road leading to the city and the siege began; it would last until 27 January 1944, a total of nearly 900 days. During the siege over 3200 residential buildings, 9000 wooden houses, and 840 factories were destroyed by the Nazis. When the siege began the civilian population of Leningrad was around 4 million; by the time the Nazi armies retreated in January 1944 after looting and then destroying the historic Palaces of the Tsars (including the Catherine, Peterhof, Gatchina, and Strelna Palaces) during their exit, only 2.5 million people remained. Over 800 thousand civilians had been killed or died.
The blockade was one of the longest and most destructive sieges in recorded history. The city endured 900 days of starvation, hypothermia, torture, arrests, survival cannibalism, snipers, constant battering at the walls of Leningrad, and despair so deep that it seemed like nobody would make it out the other side. Towards the start of the siege Hitler had ordered his armies to erase Leningrad from the face of the Earth. He had said in no uncertain terms that he had no interest in saving the lives of the civilian population. With no way out of the city, bodies were left in the streets to freeze or rot. There was no way to bury the dead. Sickness ran rampant. People ate rats, pets, shoe leather, wood, each other. Over 800 thousand people in Leningrad died in those 2 and a half years.
In Leningrad: State of Siege, Michael Jones wrote:
On 9 August 1942 the besieged city put on a performance of Shostakovich’s Seventh Symphony. [...] The symbolic importance of this concert was enormous. Composer Dmitry Shostakovich had stayed in Leningrad and begun work on his Seventh Symphony during the first month of the blockade. Later, Stalin insisted that he be evacuated, but Shostakovich dedicated the finished symphony to his native city. In March 1942 the musical score was flown into besieged Leningrad by special military plane.Historian Michael Walzer estimated that the Siege of Leningrad resulted in the deaths of "more civilians than [the] bombing of Hamburg, Dresden, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki combined." The US Military Academy estimated that Russian casualties during the siege were more than combined American and British casualties during the entire war. Millions died. Millions were tortured and imprisoned. Millions suffered unimaginable despair and pain and loss.
Trombonist Viktor Orlovsky is one of the two surviving musicians who performed at the Leningrad premiere of the Seventh Symphony on 9 August 1942. ‘Being an artist during the siege was both an overwhelming and heartbreaking experience,’ Orlovsky recalls. ‘The halls were always packed, which I thought was extraordinary.’ The Radio Committee Orchestra held its first rehearsal on 30 March 1942. It lasted a mere twenty minutes, with Eliasberg so feeble that he had to be driven in on a sledge. The orchestra had been re-formed with one powerful idea in mind—to give a sense of dignity and worth to starving Leningraders living without electricity or heat. The Germans had boasted that they would capture the city on 9 August and hold a victory celebration at Leningrad’s Astoria Hotel. The date for the Seventh Symphony’s premiere was thus deliberately chosen. [...] Orlovsky vividly remembers the atmosphere of the concert: ‘People were all dressed up and some had even had their hair done. It felt like a victory. At the end, our conductor, Eliasberg, received one bouquet of flowers from a teenage girl. She turned to the orchestra and said simply, “My family did this because life has to go on as normal—whatever happens around us.”’
It was this unconquerable spirit which saved Leningrad. Many years after the war Karl Eliasberg was approached by a group of German tourists, who said that they had come to the city especially to see him. They had been in the besieging army outside the city, so close that they were able to intercept Leningrad’s radio signals, and hear the broadcast of Shostakovich’s Seventh. Now these veterans said: ‘It had a slow but powerful effect on us. The realisation began to dawn that we would never take Leningrad. But something else started to happen. We began to see that there was something stronger than starvation, fear and death—the will to stay human.’
The Spartan siege of Athens (approx. 404 BCE) would be the closing act of the Peloponnesian War. Athens had been on the defensive since suffering a major defeat at Syracuse in 413 BCE, but it was after the naval battle of Aegospotami in 405 BCE that a Spartan victory was considered inevitable from both sides. The Spartan forces, not particularly known for their naval prowess, had increased the quality of their fleets, as well as garnering support from Persia. At the battle at Aegospotami, only 10 of the 180 Athenian ships survived. When the Spartan armies blockaded the city by land and by sea and began their prolonged assault on the walls, Athens was able to endure the onslaught—until the citizens ran out of supplies. The next few months were brutal, as rampant starvation caused mass deaths of Athenians. Athens attempted to negotiate terms of surrender to preserve as much of the city as possible. Some of Sparta's allies wanted to see the city destroyed, but the ultimate peace agreement was surprisingly generous: Athens would be allowed to continue to exist, provided it followed Sparta's lead in diplomacy and war; the walls and fortifications around the water would be destroyed, along with the Athenian navy. The conclusion of the war sealed Athens's fate, ending any chance of Athens becoming a major imperial power. The resulting power vacuum would later be filled by Macedonia, and Sparta's own hold on dominance over other Greek city-states would be short-lived.
Leningrad—Saint Petersburg, now—survived. 900 days of some of the worst conditions of one of the worst periods of human history, and the city survived. When the Nazis took the city, they nearly burned it to the ground. But the winter ended. The spring thaw came. And the city survived.