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Thucydides: The Reinvention of History Paperback – October 26, 2010
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Donald Kagan's magisterial history of the Peloponnesian War is recognized as a landmark of classical scholarship. Now, Kagan-one of the most respected classical historians in the world-turns his attention from one of the greatest conflicts in history to the author who so magnificently chronicled it: Thucydides, the first truly modern historian. This study offers readers a remarkable opportunity to experience one great historian engaging another across the centuries, in a work that is at once an engrossing voyage of discovery, a moving tribute, and a revelatory meditation on the practice of history and its value in human affairs.
- Print length257 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherPenguin Publishing Group
- Publication dateOctober 26, 2010
- Dimensions8.43 x 5.51 x 0.57 inches
- ISBN-109780143118299
- ISBN-13978-0143118299
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- ASIN : 0143118293
- Publisher : Penguin Publishing Group; Reprint edition (October 26, 2010)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 257 pages
- ISBN-10 : 9780143118299
- ISBN-13 : 978-0143118299
- Item Weight : 11.3 ounces
- Dimensions : 8.43 x 5.51 x 0.57 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #537,686 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #285 in Medieval Literary Criticism (Books)
- #465 in Ancient & Classical Literary Criticism (Books)
- #13,361 in Classic Literature & Fiction
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Needless to say, the book is excellent, written by the most notable scholar of ancient Greece, the highly recommended seller sent it on time and the book was in perfect condition.
Donald Kagan, the world's foremost scholar of the Peloponnesian Wars, in his career-long interest of Thucydides and the Wars, has discovered that the belief in Thucydides' complete objectivity is mistaken. We must realize, says Kagan, that Thucydides was a contemporary of the topic about which he wrote; moreover, his history of the period differs from the interpretations of his contemporaries. Thus, either his contemporaries' interpretations of events were mistaken and Thucydides' is the truth, or (as Kagan argues in this book) Thucydides wrote to argue against his contemporaries and to put forth a different interpretation of the events of the Peloponnesian Wars. The latter is quite similar to the former, and therefore Kagan's goal in "The Reinvention of History" is to show where Thucydides differs from the contemporary vision of events and also to show where his version of history is further from the truth than what he claims. Thucydides, we learn, was less than objective, and, to use a dirty word, had an "agenda". What his agenda was is somewhat mysterious, and I do not think Kagan did a good job at addressing this issue: perhaps Thucydides was sour over his loss of Amphipolis and subsequent exile; or perhaps he hated democracy.
For example, many of Thucydides' contemporaries believed that the Peloponnesian War was a direct result of Pericles' militancy, while Thucydides himself believed that the growth of the Athenian empire played a huge role in a long series of inevitabilities that led to the war. Exactly why Thucydides chose to blame the war on Athens' empire remains a mystery, as Kagan does not address this. Thucydides would also say that under Pericles, Athens was not a democracy, but "in fact a government ruled by its foremost citizen," i.e. Pericles. However, a detailed examination of the workings of Athenian government at this time reveals that Pericles did not "rule" over Athens indefinitely, but was restrained by many checks and balances. Here again, says Kagan, Thucydides puts a spin on things, and the Athenian would later go on to extoll Pericles and aristocratic leadership at the expense of what he perceived to be a mobocracy that was ever too ready to change course on the slightest whim.
Perhaps, then, Thucydides was a blue blooded defender of the aristocracy, who couldn't help but see Athens' defeat against Sparta as a result of the perils of democracy, but Kagan never goes this far to say so. Another warning to the prospective reader: this book is dreadfully boring, and one reviewer on this page has noted that much of the book is copied from Kagan's own history of the Peloponnesian Wars. The result---this book--- is a history of the Peloponnesian Wars with a few paragraphs about Thucydides thrown in here and there, pointing out where the Athenian's account of history differs from that of his contemporaries'. The most valuable thing to take away from this book---and it is indeed valuable---is the notion that Thucydides, while still a great historian, is not the bastion of objectivity that many today idolize him to be. He was, in Kagan's words, the first revisionist historian.
Kagan's "Thucydides" might be viewed as a companion, with differences of emphasis, to his earlier single-volume history of the Peloponnesian War. Although much of the same ground is covered in both books, the focus is different, with the ancient historian much more in the forefront of this new volume.
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On a positive note, the nine chapters forming the body of the book set out Kagan’s view that Thucydides was a revisionist who tried to contradict views about the war held by many of his contemporaries. Although Thucydides claimed to be impartial, Kagan shows he was sometimes deliberately misleading in his presentation and that those generally-held views were more likely to be correct than Thucydides’ revisions. These include his attempting to minimise the responsibility of Pericles for starting the Peloponnesian War and proposing a strategy that had to succeed quickly or bankrupt Athens, ignoring the successes of later leaders who abandoned Pericles’ strategy or attributing them as mere chance and minimising the responsibility of Nicias, whose policies followed those of Pericles, for the disaster in Sicily. However, although Kagan provides some background information, these issues were probably better considered in the context of a narrative of the events they relate to, as they were in Kagan’s history of the war, rather than in isolation.
On the other hand, the volumes of Kagan’s history of the war were published up to 40 years ago, long before the contributions of more recent researchers. The passages recycled from his earlier works are not modified on account of later interpretations, so the whole does not present a coherent and considered final opinion. The period from the late 1960s to the 2000s was also that when Kagan began to express his defence of history as a search for the truth through detailed and objective research, not just to explain events, but also to provide examples, give warnings and indicate likely developments in human affairs by reference to the past: the approach first adopted by Thucydides. Just as Kagan shows that Thucydides had an agenda, Kagan’s agenda is a plea for politics, wars and diplomacy to be studied as the central themes of history rather than just trivial and short-term compared to the society, economy and geography of the peoples and places studied.
Kagan regrets that social and economic history is replacing political history as the proper object for the study of history. His history of the Peloponnesian War is an outstanding contribution to the form of historical enquiry on which he has spent his career. This cut-and-paste consideration of Thucydides is, however, hardly the best support for his advocacy of political history.
The twist here is that Kagan does what Thucydides did to his predecessors; he argues convincingly against the ancient historian's interpretation of the Peloponnesian War, thereby "re-inventing history". Donald Kagan's writing style is both elegant and concise as one who has read The Peloponnesian War might expect. However, if you have not read that then get it, read it and then come back and get this one.







