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Thucydides: The Reinvention of History |  | Author: Donald Kagan
Publisher: Viking Adult
Category: Book
List Price: $26.95
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Seller: cbobooks
Rating:  3 reviews
Sales Rank: 85560
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1St Edition
Pages: 272
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 6.2 x 1.2
ISBN: 0670021296
Dewey Decimal Number: 938.05
EAN: 9780670021291
ASIN: 0670021296
Publication Date: October 29, 2009
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| • | ISBN13: 9780670021291 | | • | Condition: NEW | | • | Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark. |
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Product Description
A reconsideration of the first modern historian and his methods from a renowned scholar
The grandeur and power of Thucydides' The Peloponnesian War have enthralled readers, historians, and statesmen alike for two and a half millennia, and the work and its author have had an enduring influence on those who think about international relations and war, especially in our own time. In Thucydides, Donald Kagan, one of our foremost classics scholars, illuminates the great historian and his work both by examining him in the context of his time and by considering him as a revisionist historian.
Thucydides took a spectacular leap into modernity by refusing to seek explanations for human behavior in the will of the gods, or even in the will of individuals, looking instead at the behavior of men in society. In this context, Kagan explains how The Peloponnesian War differs significantly from other accounts offered by Thucydides' contemporaries and stands as the first modern work of political history, dramatically influencing the manner in which history has been conceptualized ever since.
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| Customer Reviews:
 Thucydides: The Reinvention of History January 14, 2010
Sacramento Book Review (Sacramento, CA)
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
Imagine getting the chance to read one of the world's great historians cross-examine Thucydides, "the Father of Scientific History." That is what makes Donald Kagan's //Thucydides: The Reinvention of History// such a treat. Kagan, one of the great modern Thucydides scholars, uses the Athenians own methods to tease out the reality behind his classic work, "The Peloponnesian War."
Kagan persuasively argues that centuries of historians have been wrong in assuming that Thucydides' opinions represented his time's majority view. Combing through the ancient sources, Kagan assembles considerable evidence that the Athenian was history's first revisionist, crafting a counter narrative that continues to echo through history. This claim is certain to be controversial, but Kagan cogently argues that many of Thucydides villains were considered heroes by their countrymen, and that some of his heroes, in particular Pericles, was hardly thought as flawless as he portraits. "The Peloponnesian War" is a timeless work, ever applicable to power politics and international relations, the lesson of Athens war with Sparta enlightening in any age. With this work, Kagan has succeeded in only making it more relevant to the complexity of the modern world.
Reviewed by Jordan Magill
 A Disappointment November 27, 2009
Joseph Reichmann (Los Angeles)
14 out of 21 found this review helpful
The book is barely over 200 pages and contains huge chunks (word for word) from Kagan's one volume history of the Great War. Since the War took place over 2000 years ago it is disturbing, in discussing what various partcipants thought or said, to find the author using such phrases as "It is inconceivable that" or "There can be no doubt that". This book will be mostly incomprehensible to the reader unfamiliar with the Great War and annoying to those who have read Kagan's previous work.
The History of the Great Historian November 10, 2009
Bruce Trinque (Amston, CT United States)
24 out of 27 found this review helpful
Undoubtedly Thucydides ranks among the greatest of historians. Indeed, he probably deserves to be recognized as the founder of modern history ("modern" in this case meaning a wide-ranging, fundamentally objective analysis of events). His great work on the Peloponnesian War is unmatched in its long-reaching influence. Thucydides' depiction of the great 5th century BC war between Athens and Sparta has for more than two millenia formed the basis for viewing and understanding those events. Very likely no single other work of history has ever had such an impact in forming future perception of events. In "Thucydides: The Reinvention of History", Donald Kagan -- the pre-emininent modern historian of the Peloponnesian War -- examines Thucydides' work in light of Thucydides' own claims of cool objectivity; Kagan ably demonstrates, I believe, that inevitably the ancient Greek historian did not in fact, could not indeed, wholly maintain his objectivity, certainly understandable in the Thucydides himself was a direct participant in some of the events he described. In several cases, notably Pericles' involvement in the origin of the Peloponnesian War and the doomed Athenia expedition to Sicily, Kagan presents a strong case that Thucydides has deliberately crafted an interpretation of events that ran counter to popular perceptions and, in fact, runs counter even to the evidence that Thucydides presented in his own book.
Kagan's "Thucydides" might be viewed as a companion, with differences of emphasis, to his earlier single-volume history of the Peloponnesian War. Although much of the same ground is covered in both books, the focus is different, with the ancient historian much more in the forefront of this new volume.
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