Thucydides: The Reinvention of History Tapa dura - 2009

de Donald Kagan

A reconsideration of the firstmodern historian and his methodsfrom a renowned scholar

The grandeur and power of Thucydides' ThePeloponnesian War have enthralled readers, historians,and statesmen alike for two and a half millennia, andthe work and its author have had an enduring influenceon those who think about international relationsand war, especially in our own time. In Thucydides,Donald Kagan, one of our foremost classics scholars,illuminates the great historian and his work both byexamining him in the context of his time and by consideringhim as a revisionist historian.

Thucydides took a spectacular leap into modernityby refusing to seek explanations for human behavior inthe will of the gods, or even in the will of individuals,looking instead at the behavior of men in society. Inthis context, Kagan explains how The PeloponnesianWar differs significantly from other accounts offeredby Thucydides' contemporaries and stands as the firstmodern work of political history, dramatically influencingthe manner in which history has been conceptualizedever since.