Download or read book Thucydides on War and National Character written by Robert Luginbill and published by CreateSpace. This book was released on 2015-07-15 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sparta vs. Athens. Why did the Spartans win and the Athenians lose the Peloponnesian War? Or a better question from Thucydides' perspectives, just how did Athens, at the height of her imperial power, manage to snatch such a decisive defeat from the jaws of all but certain victory? To learn from history one must first understand that all history is rooted in human nature, and for prospective leaders, answering the question "How do nations fight?" is at least as important as questions of necessity, inevitability, strategy and resources. Thucydides was the first to demonstrate that the critical historical role played by each nation's unique national character - and the extent to which its leadership can control and direct it - is the decisive element upon which victory and defeat in war always turns. What made the national character of the Spartans so different from that of the Athenians? How did these characteristics influence each side's conduct of the war, and did these disparate tendencies - Sparta conservatively fearful to maintain her position and Athens bent on further imperial acquisition at all costs - make the Peloponnesian War inevitable and its outcome a foregone conclusion? In Thucydides on War and National Character, the author explores and explains the systematic theory of collective psychology and war leadership set forth in the History, a unique set of insights meant to demonstrate in Thucydides' treatment of the war how the historical behavior of nations is biologically rooted in human nature - and how strong leaders are able to direct the collective national psyche which derives from its innate tendencies, while weak leaders react to its fickle ebbs and flows . It was the delineation of these principles in the case study of the Peloponnesian War that Thucydides felt made his work "a possession for all time".
Download or read book Thucydides on War and National Character written by Robert Luginbill and published by . This book was released on 2015-07-15 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sparta vs. Athens. Why did the Spartans win and the Athenians lose the Peloponnesian War? Or a better question from Thucydides' perspectives, just how did Athens, at the height of her imperial power, manage to snatch such a decisive defeat from the jaws of all but certain victory? To learn from history one must first understand that all history is rooted in human nature, and for prospective leaders, answering the question "How do nations fight?" is at least as important as questions of necessity, inevitability, strategy and resources. Thucydides was the first to demonstrate that the critical historical role played by each nation's unique national character - and the extent to which its leadership can control and direct it - is the decisive element upon which victory and defeat in war always turns. What made the national character of the Spartans so different from that of the Athenians? How did these characteristics influence each side's conduct of the war, and did these disparate tendencies - Sparta conservatively fearful to maintain her position and Athens bent on further imperial acquisition at all costs - make the Peloponnesian War inevitable and its outcome a foregone conclusion? In Thucydides on War and National Character, the author explores and explains the systematic theory of collective psychology and war leadership set forth in the History, a unique set of insights meant to demonstrate in Thucydides' treatment of the war how the historical behavior of nations is biologically rooted in human nature - and how strong leaders are able to direct the collective national psyche which derives from its innate tendencies, while weak leaders react to its fickle ebbs and flows . It was the delineation of these principles in the case study of the Peloponnesian War that Thucydides felt made his work "a possession for all time".
Download or read book Thucydides on War and National Character written by ROBERT DEAN. LUGINBILL and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2022-06-30 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thucydides History of the Peloponnesian War is one of the classics of ancient military writing, and one of the first true historical narratives of any kind. In Thucydides on War and National Character, Robert Luginbill explores Thucydides seminal writings on national character and its relation to humankinds tendency towards war. He investigates Thucydides theories on personal and national behavior in times of stress, with an eye for the lessons to be learned in modern times.
Download or read book Thucydides on the Outbreak of War written by S. N. Jaffe and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017-03-09 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The cause of great power war is a perennial issue for the student of politics. Some 2,400 years ago, in his monumental History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides wrote that it was the growth of Athenian power and the fear that this power inspired in Sparta which rendered the Peloponnesian War somehow necessary, inevitable, or compulsory. In this new political psychological study of Thucydides' first book, S.N. Jaffe shows how the History's account of the outbreak of the war ultimately points toward the opposing characters of the Athenian and Spartan regimes, disclosing a Thucydidean preoccupation with the interplay between nature and convention. Jaffe explores how the character of the contest between Athens and Sparta, or how the outbreak of a particular war, can reveal Thucydides' account of the recurring human causes of war and peace. The political thought of Thucydides proves bound up with his distinctive understanding of the interrelationship of particular events and more universal themes.
Download or read book Thucydides written by Thucydides and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2013-03-28 with total page 761 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A new translation of Thucydides, a foundational text in the history of Western political thought, with extensive student reference material.
Download or read book Author of Illusions written by Robert D. Luginbill and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2011-01-18 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pericles, famed general and foremost political leader of Athens during her glory days of the 5th century, brought about the downfall of the Athenian empire almost single-handedly. This truth, obvious to contemporary Greeks, is today not generally understood, and we have Thucydides and his History of the Peloponnesian War to thank for the confusion. That Thucydides, a fierce partisan of Pericles and a soldier exiled for his own military misadventures, should wish to reinvent the history of that famous war to show himself and Pericles in a more favorable light is understandable. But how could one man with a single literary production manage to replace the reality of the war with a myth of his own making, creating in the process an edifice of illusion that would last for millennia, scarcely questioned even by scholars? The answer lies in Thucydides’ ability to engage the reader’s mind and emotions with his psychological motifs. By promising to peel back the superficial layers of contemporary descriptions of the war and reveal the true ‘mysteries’ of history, Thucydides draws in his readers and persuades them to accept his overall thesis of Pericles’ innocence. Author of Illusions examines Thucydides’ techniques and demonstrates just how it was that he was able to reinterpret the history of the Peloponnesian War so successfully for his own and for Pericles’ benefit.
Download or read book Thucydides Other Traps written by Alan Greeley Misenheimer and published by . This book was released on 2019-06-06 with total page 76 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The notion of a "Thucydides Trap" that will ensnare China and the United States in a 21st century conflict-much as the rising power of Athens alarmed Sparta and made war "inevitable" between the Aegean superpowers of the 5th century BCE-has received global attention since entering the international relations lexicon 6 years ago. Scholars, journalists, bloggers, and politicians in many countries, notably China, have embraced this beguiling metaphor, coined by Harvard political science professor Graham Allison, as a framework for examining the likelihood of a Sino-American war. This case study examines the Thucydides Trap metaphor and the response it has elicited. Hewing closely to what the historian of the Peloponnesian War actually says about the causes and inevitability of war, it argues that, while Thucydides' text does not support Allison's normative assertion about the "inevitable" result of an encounter between "rising" and "ruling" powers, the History of the Peloponnesian War (hereafter, History) does identify elements of leadership and political dynamic that bear directly on whether a clash of interests between two states is resolved through peaceful means or escalates to war. It is precisely because war typically begins with a considered decision by a national command authority to reject other options and mobilize for conflict (and thus always entails an element of choice) that insight from Thucydides' History remains relevant and beneficial for the contemporary strategist, or citizen, concerned in such decisions.Accordingly, this case study concludes that the Thucydides Trap, as conceived and presented by Graham Allison, draws welcome attention both to Thucydides and to the pitfalls of great power competition, but fails as a heuristic device or predictive tool in the analysis of contemporary events. Allison's metaphor offers, at best, a potentially misleading over-simplification of Thucydides' nuanced and problematic account of the origins of the epochal conflict that defined his age. Moreover, it overlooks actual insights from the History that can help political decisionmakers-including, but not limited to, those of the United States and China-either avoid war or, if ignored, pose genuine policy "traps" that can make an avoidable war more likely, and a necessary war more costly.
Download or read book A War Like No Other written by Victor Davis Hanson and published by Random House. This book was released on 2011-11-30 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of our most provocative military historians, Victor Davis Hanson has given us painstakingly researched and pathbreaking accounts of wars ranging from classical antiquity to the twenty-first century. Now he juxtaposes an ancient conflict with our most urgent modern concerns to create his most engrossing work to date, A War Like No Other. Over the course of a generation, the Hellenic city-states of Athens and Sparta fought a bloody conflict that resulted in the collapse of Athens and the end of its golden age. Thucydides wrote the standard history of the Peloponnesian War, which has given readers throughout the ages a vivid and authoritative narrative. But Hanson offers readers something new: a complete chronological account that reflects the political background of the time, the strategic thinking of the combatants, the misery of battle in multifaceted theaters, and important insight into how these events echo in the present. Hanson compellingly portrays the ways Athens and Sparta fought on land and sea, in city and countryside, and details their employment of the full scope of conventional and nonconventional tactics, from sieges to targeted assassinations, torture, and terrorism. He also assesses the crucial roles played by warriors such as Pericles and Lysander, artists, among them Aristophanes, and thinkers including Sophocles and Plato. Hanson’s perceptive analysis of events and personalities raises many thought-provoking questions: Were Athens and Sparta like America and Russia, two superpowers battling to the death? Is the Peloponnesian War echoed in the endless, frustrating conflicts of Vietnam, Northern Ireland, and the current Middle East? Or was it more like America’s own Civil War, a brutal rift that rent the fabric of a glorious society, or even this century’s “red state—blue state” schism between liberals and conservatives, a cultural war that manifestly controls military policies? Hanson daringly brings the facts to life and unearths the often surprising ways in which the past informs the present. Brilliantly researched, dynamically written, A War Like No Other is like no other history of this important war.
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Thucydides written by Ryan Balot and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017-02-10 with total page 773 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Oxford Handbook of Thucydides contains newly commissioned essays on Thucydides as an historian, thinker, and writer. It also features chapters on Thucydides' intellectual context and ancient reception. The creative juxtaposition of historical, literary, philosophical, and reception studies allows for a better grasp of Thucydides' complex project and its intellectual context, while at the same time providing a comprehensive introduction to the author's ideas. The volume is organized into four sections of papers: History, Historiography, Political Theory, and Context and Reception. It therefore bridges traditionally divided disciplines. The authors engaged to write the forty chapters for this volume include both well-known scholars and less well-known innovators, who bring fresh ideas and new points of view. Articles avoid technical jargon and long footnotes, and are written in an accessible style. Finally, the volume includes a thorough introduction prefacing each paper, as well as several maps and an up-to-date bibliography that will enable further study. The Oxford Handbook of Thucydides offers a comprehensive introduction to a thinker and writer whose simultaneous depth and innovativeness have been the focus of intense literary and philosophical study since ancient times.
Download or read book How to Think about War written by Thucydides and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2019-02-05 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An accessible modern translation of essential speeches from Thucydides’s History that takes readers to the heart of his profound insights on diplomacy, foreign policy, and war Why do nations go to war? What are citizens willing to die for? What justifies foreign invasion? And does might always make right? For nearly 2,500 years, students, politicians, political thinkers, and military leaders have read the eloquent and shrewd speeches in Thucydides’s History of the Peloponnesian War for profound insights into military conflict, diplomacy, and the behavior of people and countries in times of crisis. How to Think about War presents the most influential and compelling of these speeches in an elegant new translation by classicist Johanna Hanink, accompanied by an enlightening introduction, informative headnotes, and the original Greek on facing pages. The result is an ideally accessible introduction to Thucydides’s long and challenging History. Thucydides intended his account of the clash between classical Greece’s mightiest powers—Athens and Sparta—to be a “possession for all time.” Today, it remains a foundational work for the study not only of ancient history but also contemporary politics and international relations. How to Think about War features speeches that have earned the History its celebrated status—all of those delivered before the Athenian Assembly, as well as Pericles’s funeral oration and the notoriously ruthless “Melian Dialogue.” Organized by key debates, these complex speeches reveal the recklessness, cruelty, and realpolitik of Athenian warfighting and imperialism. The first English-language collection of speeches from Thucydides in nearly half a century, How to Think about War takes readers straight to the heart of this timeless thinker.
Download or read book The Landmark Thucydides written by Thucydides and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2008-04 with total page 760 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Chronicles two decades of war between Athens and Sparta.
Download or read book Thucydides and the Ancient Simplicity written by Gregory Crane and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2023-12-22 with total page 461 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War is the earliest surviving realist text in the European tradition. As an account of the Peloponnesian War, it is famous both as an analysis of power politics and as a classic of political realism. From the opening speeches, Thucydides' Athenians emerge as a new and frightening source of power, motivated by self-interest and oblivious to the rules and shared values under which the Greeks had operated for centuries. Gregory Crane demonstrates how Thucydides' history brilliantly analyzes both the power and the dramatic weaknesses of realist thought. The tragedy of Thucydides' history emerges from the ultimate failure of the Athenian project. The new morality of the imperialists proved as conflicted as the old; history shows that their values were unstable and self-destructive. Thucydides' history ends with the recounting of an intellectual stalemate that, a century later, motivated Plato's greatest work. Thucydides and the Ancient Simplicity includes a thought-provoking discussion questioning currently held ideas of political realism and its limits. Crane's sophisticated claim for the continuing usefulness of the political examples of the classical past will appeal to anyone interested in the conflict between the exercise of political power and the preservation of human freedom and dignity.
Download or read book Thucydides Book 1 written by H. Don Cameron and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 162 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Offers a better way to read Thucydides through the explanation of grammar and a glimpse into the history of classical scholarship
Download or read book Thucydides written by Thucydides and published by . This book was released on 1965 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Thucydides Between History and Literature written by Antonis Tsakmakis and published by de Gruyter. This book was released on 2013 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ideas of history: Ktema es aiei : Thucydides' concept of "learning through history" and its realization in his work / Kurt A. Raaflaub -- The distribution of character judgments in Thucydides / Matthieu de Bakker -- Ascribing motivation in Thucydides : between historical research and literary representation / Melina Tamiolaki -- The causes of the Athenian pestilence and the plague / Paul Demont -- Representations of time and space: The presence of the past in Thucydides / Jonas Grethlein -- The Cylon conspiracy : Thucydides and the uses of the past / Tim Rood -- Katâ ethne kai kata poleis : from the catalogues to the archaeologies / Roberto Nicolai -- In the shadow of Pericles: Athens' Samian victory and the organization of the Pentekontaetia / Marek Węcowski -- Transformations of landscapes in Thucydides / Vassiliki Pothou -- Thucydides and politics: "Reading" Athens : foreign perceptions of the agency of leaders and demos in Thucydides / Sarah Brown Ferrario -- Thucydides and the masses / Suzanne Saad -- Thucydides' Pericles : between historical reality and literary representation /Panos Christodoulou -- Aspects of the narrative: The balance of power and compositional balance: Thucydides, book I / June Allison -- Blurring the boundaries of speech: Thucydides and indirect discourse / Paula Debnar -- The narrative strategy: observations on the 7th book of Thucydides / Anna Lamari -- "The dot on the i" : Thucydidean epilogues / Hans-Peter Stahl -- The narrative legacy of Thucydides: Polybius book 1 / Nikos Miltsios -- The language of Thucydides: The litotes of Thucydides / Pierre Pontier -- History as presence : time, tense and narrative modes in Thucydides / Rutger J. Allan -- Textual structure and modality in Thucydides' military exhortations / Antonis Takmakis, Charalambos Themistokleous -- Attributive discourse in the speeches of Thucydides / Maria Pavlou -- Difficult statements in Thucydides / Jonathan Price -- The language of Pericles / Daniel P. Tompkins.
Download or read book The Peloponnesian War written by Thucydides and published by McGraw-Hill Companies. This book was released on 1982 with total page 614 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War is widely considered to be the definitive ancient treatment of the period it covers. The work summarizes events from the years leading up to the war (the Pentecontaetia) and gives an in-depth treatment from the late 430s BC to 411 BC, where it ends in midsentence.
Download or read book The Great War Between Athens and Sparta written by Bernard William Henderson and published by . This book was released on 1927 with total page 556 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
