Thucydides and the Ancient Simplicity
Regular price
€65.99
14 days return policy
Shipping & Delivery
A01=Gregory Crane
ancient
ancient greece
ancient world history
athena
athenian project
Author_Gregory Crane
Category=DSBB
Category=JPA
Category=NHC
Category=NHD
classic political examples
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
european tradition
greece ancient
greece thucydides
greek history
history
history theory
international relations
peloponnesian war
political examples
political power
political realism
political science
provoking discussion
realist thought
sophisticated claim
surviving realist
thought-provoking discussion questions
thucydides
Product details
- ISBN 9780520207899
- Weight: 680g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 28 Aug 1998
- Publisher: University of California Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
Secure
checkout
Fast Shipping
Easy returns
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.
Gregory Crane is Associate Professor of Classics at Tufts University and author of The Blinded Eye: Thucydides and the New Written Word (1995) among other publications.
