Thucydides: Power, Politics, War

Catalog description

Thucydides' account of the 27-year war between Athens and Sparta is perhaps the most influential history of a real war ever written. Written 2400 years ago, it has appeared strikingly "modern" to many generations of readers - and for good reason. His text is at once a political theory, an analytic narrative, and a meditation on both international relations and the human condition. Thucydides offers to teach his attentive reader about state power, predicated on understanding individual motivations and group identities; the relationship of war to civil conflict; risk vs chance; expectation vs hope; morality vs moralism; strengths and weaknesses of democracy; charismatic leaders and demagogues; the fragility of civilization; and much else. Coming to grips with Thucydides requires reading the entire text, slowly and carefully, in light of the background conditions he expected his readers to understand, with attention to the intellectual climate of his age, and with guidance from thoughtful modern commentators. That is what we will do in this seminar.