A Tale of Two City-States

I remember years ago reading (or was I just thinking?) that the age of Thucydides was over. His Peloponnesian War, the history of the devastating strife between Athens and Sparta in the fifth century B.C., was a text for the times during the confrontation between the United States and the USSR. No less a figure than Secretary of State George C. Marshall, at no other time than in 1947, at the start of the Cold War, said that to understand the international issues of the day it was necessary to study the Peloponnesian War. After the end of the Cold War in 1991, and with the replacement of the U.S.-Soviet rivalry with a world of ethnic, national, and religious blocs, it seemed that we had entered the era of another Greek writer, Herodotus, whose Histories describes a mosaic of international relations; maybe even more so in the era of the Global War on Terror. But now, great power rivalry is back, as the United States and its allies face formidable opposition led by China. We turn once again for wisdom and perspective, therefore, to the history of the competition between Athens and Sparta. To quote Godfather III, Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in! Enter Adrian Goldsworthy, author of a new book on the rivalry between Athens and Sparta. The reader is in the best of hands. Goldsworthy combines the expertise of the scholar that he is with the common touch of the author that he has become. He is one of the very best historians of the ancient world writing for a popular audience.The post A Tale of Two City-States appeared first on .