a book

The History of the Peloponnesian War

Name: The History of the Peloponnesian War
Rating: 5 (8 reviews)
Author: Thucydides
ISBN: 9780140440393

Thucydides · 1954 · 648 pages

Written four hundred years before the birth of Christ, this detailed contemporary account of the struggle between Athens and Sparta stands an excellent chance of fulfilling the author's ambitious claim that the work "was done to last forever." The conflicts between the two empires over shipping, trade, and colonial expansion came to a head in 431 b.c. in Northern Greece, and the entire Greek world was plunged into 27 years of war. Thucydides applied a passion for accuracy and a contempt for myth and romance in compiling this exhaustively factual record of the disastrous conflict that eventually ended the Athenian empire.

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recommended by 8 people

sourced from public statements

Robert Greene
“It’s the most beautiful thing you can ever read, because you’re reading about our history as humans some 2,500 years ago in ancient Greece. And you’ve got this narrator who’s so modern, who’s someone who could be somebody who’s not sitting right next to you, who has this very clear perspective. And he’s describing these events so far in the past – they’re so dramatic and they’re so exciting and he’s analyzing it brilliantly. I wish we had a handful of writers to this day who could be like that, who could have that clarity, who could have that kind of logic, who could have that kind of analytical ability. But it existed 2,500 years ago. This great historian Thucydides wrote one book that I know of, The History of the Peloponnesian War, but it’s the most marvelous adventure you could ever go on.”↗
Satya Nadella
Ryan Holiday
Matt Mullenweg
Steven Pressfield
Robert Service
Gideon Rose
Joseph Nye