The wars and battles drag. The diplomacy and politics are better. The stress on accuracy is admirable. The concern with self-interest, not fables and moralism, is just great.

I read this over 30 years ago in an undergraduate seminar course on Sparta, but the book’s compelling mix of narrative and analysis stays with me. The book makes you feel close to what must have felt like a world war. Of course, it was also exciting to read one of the books that played a key part in modern historiography’s origin myth.

To be completed anon.

A possession for all time, indeed! Surely one of the greatest books ever written.