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alexandrapierce 's review for:
Thucydides: The Reinvention of History
by Donald Kagan
I bought this book ages ago because I was fascinated by the idea of finding out more about Thucydides. I've read bits and pieces by the man, of course, although never all that much. The thought of having such a seminal figure put in his context and explored as a fallible man and amazing historian was alluring indeed.
Alas, this is not the book I was expecting. It would be better titled Thucydides and the Peloponnesian War - which wouldn't have appealed to me as much, because I'm not quite as in love with the Peloponnesian issues as I am with, say the Persian, but that's beside the point. What Kagan has written here is overwhelming about the Peloponnesian War, with bits about Thucydides' perspective and how he's being a revisionist woven through that. Which is an entirely admirable project, but it is NOT what this book proclaims itself to be. So I was disappointed.
Overall it's readable; fairly dense, but I haven't studied this era in ages and I am not a military historian, and I still got on relatively well.
Alas, this is not the book I was expecting. It would be better titled Thucydides and the Peloponnesian War - which wouldn't have appealed to me as much, because I'm not quite as in love with the Peloponnesian issues as I am with, say the Persian, but that's beside the point. What Kagan has written here is overwhelming about the Peloponnesian War, with bits about Thucydides' perspective and how he's being a revisionist woven through that. Which is an entirely admirable project, but it is NOT what this book proclaims itself to be. So I was disappointed.
Overall it's readable; fairly dense, but I haven't studied this era in ages and I am not a military historian, and I still got on relatively well.