The first great history book. In addition, there are spectacular passages like the Melian Conference where the Athenian envoy states:

For ourselves, we shall not trouble you with specious pretences- either of how we have a right to our empire because we overthrew the Mede, or are now attacking you because of wrong that you have done us- and make a long speech which would not be believed; and in return we hope that you, instead of thinking to influence us by saying that you did not join the Lacedaemonians, although their colonists, or that you have done us no wrong, will aim at what is feasible, holding in view the real sentiments of us both; since you know as well as we do that right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they canand the weak suffer what they must.

One criteria for saying a book is good is if its ahead of its time. Of all books in existence this may be the book most ahead of its time. Reading this detailed description of a war between the city states of Sparta and Athnes it is unbelievable it was written about 2500 years ago. A modern historian describing a current war given similar sources would not do much different. Additionally it is among the best primers on classic Greece, the foundation of modern society.

History of the Peloponnesian War is a classic for good reason and a must read for anyone reading more than a handful books.

Quite simply the best book ever written due to it's descriptions of human nature, conflicts arisen due to different cultures (Athens & Sparta), and the speeches given during the course of the war. I've learned more from this book about life and truth than any other book I've ever read. Readers, philosophers and statesmen owe it to themselves to read this book. Simply incredible and I need to re read soon.

Two political-economic systems compete for influence and dominance after the greatest war that has ever happened, but peace could not last. The History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides covers the first twenty years of the war between Athens and Sparta before it’s abrupt ending, but throughout his text the motives of the participants and the analysis of unintended consequences shows give the war it’s full context.

The first book—created by later editors not Thucydides—of the work focuses on early Greek history, political commentary, and seeks to explain how the war was caused and why it happened when it did. Over the course of Books 2 through 8, Thucydides covered not only the military action of the war but also the numerous political machinations that both sides encouraged in each other’s allied cities or in neutrals to bring them to their side. The war is presented in a chronological manner for nearly the entire work with only two or three diversions in either historical context or to record what happened elsewhere during the Sicilian Expedition that took up Books 6 & 7. The sudden ending of the text reveals that Thucydides was working hard on the work right up until he died, years after the conflict had ended.

The military narrative is top notch throughout the book which is not a surprise given Thucydides’ time as an Athenian general before his exile. Even though he was an Athenian, Thucydides was positively and negatively critical of both Athens and Sparta especially when it came to demagogues in Athenian democracy and severe conservatism that permeated Spartan society in all its facets. Though Thucydides’ created the prebattle and political speeches he relates, is straightforwardness about why he did it does not take away from the work. If there is one negative for the work is that Thucydides is somewhat dry which can make you not feel the urge to pick up the book if you’ve been forced to set it down even though you’ve been enjoying the flow of history it describes.

The History of the Peloponnesian War though unfinished due to Thucydides death was both a continuation of the historic genre that Herodotus began but also a pioneering work as it recorded history as it happened while also using sources that Thucydides was able to interview. If you enjoy reading history and haven’t read this classic in military history, then you need to.

In a moment of insanity I began this book in December last year, thinking I would push to finish it before 2020. Obviously that didn't happen.

While in appearance this seems merely to be a somewhat larger-than-average book, it is actually of monstrous size, given the density of the text. Therefore I have been reading this all throughout this year, on and off. And now, long as this may be, and despite the writer himself claiming this book was not written for entertainment's sake but merely to report what happened during the war he himself served in, I found it to be a remarkably engaging read. It's as close to a book version of Age of Empires as you could come across.

At first I placed it on the same level as Homer's seminal Iliad, but eventually decided I preferred this as it focuses not just on the violence of battle but on the political intrigues and democratic debates that took place in the cities amongst the Greek islands (and it is entirely without the ridiculous if fun polytheism of Homer). Towards the end though - specifically during Book Seven, with the costly and disastrous Athenian defeat in Sicily - I decided this book was just as good, indeed better, than any of its kind could be. For someone who wasn't even all that interested in ancient Greek history - I certainly hated it in high school - this book, despite naturally having its slower parts, was literally never boring, was frequently riveting, often emotionally stirring and so very packed with memorable moments that I think any respectable Hollywood producer could have a field-day with it. Honestly, the number of amazing stories - true, no less - that this book contains is incredible. Eerily, there was even a fairly horrifying section detailing the populace of Athens suffering a deadly plague, which I read less than a month before COVID-19 hit the scene.

In conclusion, the History of the Peloponnesian War is a long but extremely worthwhile book, so highly relevant in its depiction of ancient civilisation that practiced an intriguing form of democratic, diplomatic policy, something I never expected I would enjoy nearly as much as I did. Hands down, the best thing I have read this year so far.

Read this and you will think you are reading today's descriptions of the American government's foreign policy. Yet this is (431-404 B.C.E.) Greece...trippy. Very interesting.

Only four stars for historical significance. I don't recommend reading it unless you know the war already, enjoy reading war histories, or adore the Ancient Greeks. I fall in the last category and still found it super dull. I read this twice for two classes and still couldn't stomach it. But, it is the first history book in the Western world, so, kind of hard to lose stars on a first attempt.

Favorite quote:
"The absence of romance in my history will, I fear, detract somewhat from its interest, but if it is judged worthy by those inquirers who desire an exact knowledge of the past as an aid to the understanding of the future, which in the course of human things must resemble if it does not reflect it, I shall be content.
In fine I have written my work not as an essay with which to win the applause of the moment but as a possession for all time." -Thucydides

Fantastic edition. Clear and readable translation with helpful notes and layout. Perfect for my MA dissertation.

I love thucydides?!

Masterwork

One of the oldest stories in Western literature is about a war; one of the oldest works of history as a practice distinct from philosophy and poetry is likewise about a war. The former, Homer’s Iliad, is well known nowadays; the latter, Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War, is less familiar. Yet much of the best and worst of war is here, and far from helping me briefly to forget recent events, it reminded me of them, and of much else besides. The book contains a thoroughly rousing statement of the power and potential of a great civilization, in the form of Pericles’ Funeral Oration; it contains a classic portrait of the demagogue as a type, in the person of Cleon; it contains a disturbing evocation of the social effects of an outbreak of plague (surely one of the first reports of its kind); it contains a night battle that probably prompted the final lines of Matthew Arnold’s “Dover Beach”; and it contains more than one detailed account of civil strife, the second of which brought about a complete, though short-lived, breakdown of democracy in Athens.

Thucydides—his name and the book have become synonymous—is a touchstone in another way as well. A recent discussion in The Economist of what’s wrong and right about the Netflix series The Crown brought him up for criticism because of his freely avowed tactic of inventing speeches if he wasn’t present to hear them. “History,” that article observed, “has a long and august history of blending fiction and truth.” Memoir does much the same but is less argued over; we’re apt to think that matters less (except to the people whose talk is recreated). But in all such cases the purpose is always the same, a vivid and dramatic presentation, and at least Thucydides confesses to it.

The book has its problems. The high points that I’ve mentioned are embedded in what the introduction calls a “continuous war narrative,” and it’s a long one, sometimes a slog, covering nearly 600 pages of text about a war between Athens and Sparta that lasted 27 years, from 431 BC to 404, which encompassed a swath of cities and territories that must have been vast in its time. Thucydides says nothing about what we’d call the home front if it doesn’t directly pertain to the war. You’d never know, except for a passing mention in one of this edition’s appendices, that discontent with the war led to Aristophanes’ still-famous antiwar play, Lysistrata, nor would you know about any of the other glories of Athenian culture that arose during, and seemingly in spite of, the war.

You wouldn’t even know how it ended, if not for a telling look-ahead in the middle of the account. Pausing to sum things up after covering the first 10 years, when a poorly observed treaty went into effect, Thucydides says he has written the rest of the story, “down to the time when the Spartans and their allies put an end to the empire of Athens.” So you know it will turn out badly. But when you reach the last page of the text as we have it, you find it breaks off in 411, which was nearly seven years before the war concluded. Where’s the rest of the story? This isn’t known. Possibly Thucydides paused in his writing to go back and revise some earlier sections and was simply waylaid by death before he could complete his work.

The book reads like a novel in some respects, because of its breadth and depth. The comparison isn’t silly. The word “history” comes from a Greek verb meaning “to inquire,” and in some languages—French, for instance—history sometimes means story, as in Stravinsky’s L’Histoire du soldat or Godard’s punning title Histoire(s) du cinema. Regardless, this history has a powerful effect. One begins to feel that war is a kind of monster, born of mankind, that rampages across time and place, consuming persons, institutions, and entire cities. Because the book tells a never-ended story, one may feel as well—I did—that the war is somehow still going on. Indeed, in one form or another, it still is.