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I used this book for an introductory History class. It is a great supplement to the study of the Greek periods. It has a nice glossory in the back for unusual terms, as well as helpful maps. Some of the text is a bit dry, but the reading is not very difficult.

Thucydides is known as the great-grandaddy of history, sharing that title with Herodotus but generally accepted as being the more objective of the two. And while Herodotus keeps us entertained with beguiling if largely unbelievable tales of lands he probably never saw, Thucydides renders a cold, calculated, intensely detailed snapshot of events in which he was a minor player. Thus 'The History of the Peloponnesian Wars' is at once, very believable and very dry. If you are interested in a good story about the fall of the Athenian empire you've come to the wrong place (albeit perhaps the only good source). If you are an archaeologist or historian trying to determine the number of Carmarinaean hoplites at the siege of Syracuse, Thucydides is a treasure trove.

Thucydides, covers the approximately thirty years of the Pelopponesian wars. The wars, which effectively pitted the Athenian empire, formed of Athens and its mostly Ionian 'involuntary' allies, against the Spartan's and their more voluntary, if less democratically governed allies. The war grinds on for years without major event until the Athenians try to conquer Syracuse and Sicily. They ultimately fail, and, when the Persian empire intervenes on the side of Sparta, are stripped of their empire and ultimately defeated. The resulting book is full of details - not of character or daily life but of places and people. It's not an easy read.

That's not to say there aren't a few moving tales amongst the vast welter of place names, personal names, ship lists and roll calls. The story of the Mytilenian debate, in which the conquered Mytilene population is nearly massacred by a decree rescinded at the last second is definitely worth a read. The sad fate of the Athenian army after the long siege of Syracuse is also gripping, as is the escape from the siege of Plataea of two hundred men.

If you are an academic, this book is full of a lot of useful material on the Athenian empire, Sicily, Persia and Greece in the 4th century B.C. I imagine you could spend a lifetime cross-correlating names and places with other early documents and inscriptions. This edition is not particularly well stocked with scholarly resources, coming as it does with a brief introduction, four short appendices, few footnotes, and only a brief bibliography and index. You might be better off with the four volumes of the Loeb Classical Library's Thucydides. If you are taking a course in classical Greek history this might suffice.

Since I am not an academic but read history for interest's sake only, I found the book slow, pedantic and over-absorbed with details. If you are very interested in this time period but not willing to slog through a lot of factual detail I would suggest you read a modern book on Greek history. If, like me, you feel the need to read the source material, I would suggest you get a really good atlas of classical history, familiarize yourself with the history of the time period fully and only then attempt Thucydides.

This book and the Histories of Herodotus establish the poles between which all subsequent history-writing has navigated.

The “poles” are the storytelling approach exemplified by Herodotus and the “chronicle” approach exemplified by Thucydides. For while Herodotus tells his history as a series of yarns, hearsay, and human-interest stories, Thucydides sees himself as a searcher for and reporter of literal, factual truth. Thucydides himself is conscious of the disadvantage that this approach puts him under, as he explains near the end of chapter 1:

"The absence of romance in my history will, I fear, detract somewhat from its interest; but if it be judged useful by those inquirers who desire an exact knowledge of the past as an aid to the interpretation of the future, which in the course of human things must resemble if it does not reflect it, I shall be content. I have written my work, not as an essay which is to win the applause of the moment, but as a possession for all time."

I wonder whether Thucydides, writing in the 5th century BC, in using the phrase “a possession for all time”, imagined that his work would still be read 2,500 years later.

His history is an account of the Peloponnesian War, a grim 21-year conflagration that consumed Greece in Thucydides’ own lifetime; indeed he himself took part in it as a commander of forces at Thasos. This war, though long and brutal, may seem to be a mere byway of ancient history, but I took interest in it because Arnold J. Toynbee, in his A Study of History series, identifies it as the turning-point of the Hellenic Civilization, when its period of flourishing ended and its Time of Troubles began. Here, according to Toynbee, began its long and bumpy ride downward to its final dissolution as a distinct civilization, manifested in the collapse of the Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. If the Peloponnesian War really was the beginning of the end for the Hellenic civilization, could the Greeks somehow have pulled themselves back from the precipice and found a way to inject new creative life into their society?

The war itself was about which of the two dominant states in Greece, Athens or Lacedaemon on the Peloponnese, would be masters of Hellas. In the days since the Greeks had miraculously fought off the invading Persians (the story told by Herodotus in his book), Athens and Lacedaemon had both acquired little empires for themselves within Greece: leagues of subordinate states that paid tribute to the hegemons and joined with them in military alliances. But running these teams of “allies” was like herding cats, for the member states were always fighting amongst themselves and switching sides when it seemed convenient.

As I read Thucydides’ description of the causes of the war in chapter 2, I was reminded of the events leading up to World War I in the sense that such seemingly trivial beginnings led to such a ferocious catastrophe. In this case it had to do with the civic politics of Epidamnus and Corcyra (modern Corfu), two states on the Ionian Sea. Internecine conflicts dragged in their imperial masters, and hey presto: regional war. Athens and Lacedaemon make repeated attempts to resolve their differences, and even sign more than one peace treaty, but all to no avail. At bottom, they both think they can win, so war it must be.

As a read I found this book tough going. There are many detailed and circumstantial accounts of particular episodes in the long war, involving many different places and people. To follow these in detail would require vastly more time and effort than I was prepared to put in. Occasionally I referred to the maps at the back of the book, but mostly I just let the information wash over me, sitting up straighter as I reached passages where the author summarizes things and also where he reports the speeches of various characters involved, for here could be found a number of powerful arguments on different aspects of politics and war. Thucydides describes his own handling of speeches thus:

"With reference to the speeches in this history, some were delivered before the war; some I heard myself, others I got from various quarters; in all cases my habit has been to make the speakers say what was in my opinion demanded of them by the various occasions, adhering as closely as possible to the general sense of what they really said." [slightly compressed]

One famous dialogue occurs when the powerful Athenians are trying to persuade the much weaker Melians to surrender to them without a fight. When the Melians point out the injustice of the Athenians’ actions, the Athenians give this chilling reply:

"You know as well as we do that right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must."

There in capsule form lies the political theory that underlies just about all of human history.

As a writer Thucydides is sober, astute, and understated. His goal is not to tell a captivating story, but to provide, for people who have not actually participated in this war, the next best thing to being there. His prose reads like a long military report, including signs of special interest and eagerness over the tactical details of specific engagements.

Here again I found myself flummoxed by the star-rating system. For while this book was not pleasure reading for me, I found it to be deep and worthwhile. My impression is that societies become prone to war when they become rich, bored, and lacking in intellectual vigor. It was true 2,500 years ago, and it’s true right now.

Who should read Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War ?

* Anyone who wants to understand how free societies can descend into tyranny:

* Anyone who does not realise that merely holding free elections is not enough to preserve a society worth living in, especially if you don't combine democracy with the rule of law:

* Anyone who needs to understand how two or more nations can stumble into a war devastating to both:

* Anyone who imagines that genocide and ethnic cleansing were limited to our own era:

* Anyone interested in reading one of the first works of true history ever written.

In other words this history of a terrible war nearly two and half thousand years ago is as relevant in the first decade of the third millenium as it was when it was written, four centuries before the birth of Jesus Christ.

If I had to nominate one historical work for my son and daughter to read, I would think carefully between this volume, Suetonius's "The 12 Caesars", and Herodotus's "Histories", but Thucydides "History of the Poloponnesian war" would edge it.

You cannot take every word in this book for granted, but Herodotus and Thucydides came closer to an objective search for truth than any writer whose works survive and was writing before them or for centuries afterwards.

The story of the tragic wars, initially between Athens and Sparta, which decimated Greek civilisation between 431BC and 404 BC is absolutely gripping, and Thucydides brings the story to life for me.

The translation by Richard Crawley was written more than 130 years ago, and in some versions, slightly revised by R.C. Feetham in 1903. Despite being more than a century old, I found the translation to be accessible and easy to understand. I understand from those who know more about history than I do that Crawley's translation is now preferred by current experts to the rival Victorian translation by Benjamin Jowett which provides more of a general sense of Thucydides' writing but is less good at conveying the detail.

The most irritating thing about Thucydides book is that it stops suddently in the middle of a sentence in 411 BC, shortly after the overthrow of democracy in Athens and the Athenian naval victory at the Dardanelles. E.g. well before the actual resolution of the conflict between Athens and Sparta, let alone the subsequent struggle between both cities and Thebes.

If, like me, this leaves you wanting to learn more about what happened next, your best bet is to read Xenophon's "A history of my times" which was deliberately written to follow on from Thucydides, to such an extent that it actually starts with the words "And after this."

The reputation of Xenophon among historians as a reliable source has fallen dramatically over the past few decades, and he is undoubtedly not in the same class as Thucydides as a historian, but he certainly is in the same class as a storyteller and he does complete the story of the war.

Thucydides is called the father of history, and with this text's translation that is exactly how it reads, as unbiased history. The language is unpoetic, straight forward and easy to read. I found the word for word speeches of the Athenians and Corinthians to be especially fascinating, it is if their words are echoing over a vast space of time, yet there ideas and fears are so much like ours today. Anyone who wants to understand human nature and the cause of warfare should read it, and you can't beat the price.

Without this detailed history of the Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC) written by an Athenian at the time, Thucydides, we probably would not know much of details of this cataclysmic upheaval in the Mediterranean.

It was a war that lasted 27 years and ended with the defeat of Athens by the Peloponnesian League led by Sparta. The war spread across the Greek islands in the Aegean Sea to what is now the Turkish coast, south to Rhodes, north to Thrace (now part of Greece and Bulgaria) and east to Sicily where Athens suffered a crushing defeat from a military misadventure.

The deaths, destruction, casual taking of slaves, brutal seizure of assets from conquered people and wholesale destruction of agricultural lands make today's events in the region seem positively peaceful, even considering Syria.

What I found interesting were the descriptions of conniving, backstabbing, corruption and general contempt for democratic traditions of the time that undermined Athens' cause. Thucydides was an Athenian who owned the gold mines of Thrace and had a clear understanding of the political machinations of both Athens and Sparta.

It is lengthy reading but a fascinating first-hand account.

Another aspect I found interesting was the political speeches of the day - clear, well set out with powerful and logical arguments developed over a length of time. Those speeches provide a very clear contrast with today's mushy, emotional political appeals that provide scarcely any real content. In my view, 2,500 years ago politicians were giving better speeches than today.

I had a Greek teacher who loved Herodotus, and did not love Thucydides. The consequences were not, perhaps, what you might expect. In the event, when we studied Herodotus, she would chatter on about the background, the characters. When we came to Thucydides, without nearly so much to entertain her, we just read the Greek.

Good thing, too. Herodotus' Greek is not elegant, and it is not pure Attic. But it is accessible to the relative novice. Thucydides, on the other hand, is about as hard as it comes - made worse by the fact that he is most accessible where he is least interesting, which is to say in the passages of pure battle narrative. It is in the "reflective" passages - where his "characters" are trying to explain or justify their actions, or where he is simply trying to make sense of an appalling calamity - that he is most obscure.

Is this an accident? I think not. Thucydides is, after all, an originator. He is perhaps not quite the first to give us a narrative of events, but he is surely the first to try to make sense of it all. And to recognize the path taken by his own beloved country as the course of stark strategy. It is the story, in short (at least at one level) of how a nation perhaps too rich and too self assured, can go terribly wrong.

It was fashionable to cite Thucydides in the dark days of the Vietnam War. I wonder if the comparison shows us too much flattery. For Thucydides' story is not only a story about the arrogance of power. Athens at its best was a priceless treasure. Anyone can throw away an opportunity, but some opportunities are better than others.

Suggestion: of all the readers who responded to the challenge of Thucydides, none met it more dramatically than Thomas Hobbes, the British political philosopher who began his career by fashioning the first great English translation of the Peloponnesian War. Hobbes' 17th-Century translation is perhaps not the most accessible, and I gather it is not the most accurate. But Hobbes has a gnarly directness of his own, and echoes of Thucydides reverberate through just about everything he later wrote.

their should be paid more effort in order to reflect the real meaning of the greek text - experts in ancient greek language are needed.
Maybe it was a translation from the modern greek instead of the ancient ones.

Bought it cheap, but should have sold for a penny. Missing pages, all kinds of notes, highlights, underlines, and beat up.
Other than that, it's a great read. (wonder what the 3 missing pages said)
Should have been described as "Used, condition poor"

I've given this phenomenal read four stars only because, although the translation smacks of being accurate (Uh, no, I do not read ancient Greek), the archaic syntax could turn some readers off. It almost did me but then I got into the story and found it was exactly right for the historical period.
The incidents that lead up to the Peloponnesian war are amazingly like those that lead to any war of our lifetime. Doesn't say much for how civilized we think we are. But it's for that reason that I found the book fascinating. Sometimes the chill voice of Thucydides recounting bloody carnage and two-faced treachery and stupid strategies and, yes, even surprisingly brilliant maneuvers becomes a sort of raft of hope we cling to as we're tossed from one year to the next throughout the tale of this 30 year long war.
History buffs, I know have read it already. Well, read it again. It's worth it.

Thucidydes' History of the Peloponnesian War was one of the most important books ever written in the history of Western civilation and world history.

In opposition to Herodotus who wrote earlier, to whom Thucidydes was a student and reader of, Thucidydes was a realist and discussed the interests, positions, and power politics that occurred between the Athens and Sparta and their respective leagues (allies; combined military operations by treaty). As opposed to Herodotus, who is sometimes known as the father of history as Herodotus was arguably the first person to write history in the sense that we know it today, and who still utilized unseen forces, gods, spirits, etc., as guiding world history, Thucidydes focused more on the human aspect and what he could gleem from his travels and research. Thus, many historians point to Thucidydes as being the true progenitor of history as we know it today.

The political intrigue, the military and political strategic considerations, the actual boots-on-the-ground description of the battles, etc. are vivid, detailed, and make for compelling reading. I especially like the stories concerning Athens and Sparta's fighting on the island of Sicily.

All students of rhetoric will also find some of the finest examples of it within its pages (i.e., Pericles' funerary oration, etc.). The descriptions of the debates within the assemblies shows the considerations that both the Athenian and Spartan led leagues and their populations had to consider.

This is the first book on international relations known and is the first work to utilize a realist interpretation of international politics. It is studied at the war colleges and by all scholars of international relations, and by all serious students of grand strategy.

This book is excellent, in the Greek sense, that is Arete.

Like Twain once said a Classic is a book everyone wants to have read, but no one wants to read. I am very glad I read this. I read it in a course at the US Naval War College. The NWC used this after the end of Vietnam to look at that war in a different perspective. It was helpful, not only in understanding Vietnam better, but in understanding all the reason why a nation shouldn't go to war unless it absolutely has to. This is something we have forgotten a lot with the misbegotten adventures in Iraq Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria. It is a little difficult to get through, but much wisdom imparted along the way. The dialogs and discussion in forums in the marketplace are excellent.

"History of the Peloponnesian War" can be at its best compelling and enlightening, the times' finest minds with eloquence and force stirring their countrymen into decision and action. Individuals and politics matter less in Thucydides' understanding of the world than human nature and realpolitik. For Thucydides, the war between the Athenians and the Spartans was not based on ideology or any real differences. For him, Athens was clearly the aggressor, and while the city-state, grown rich and powerful on the carcass of the dying Persian empire, was a democracy to itself, it really was an empire to the world -- exacting tribute from its "allies," and expanding until it at least threatened great Sparta itself. Pericles was a noble man and a brilliant orator, but in his funeral oration he used all his powers to press his people to bloody war, and with twisted logic convinces his people that death for Athens in war is both noble and worthy. Perhaps if war was really about preserving Athens' liberty, but in using war to expand its empire Athens was slowly destroying its liberty. That is a historical lesson that the British themselves learned and the Americans are quietly learning now, and that's what makes "History of the Peloponnesian War" such an urgent read.

The good: The first part of this book reads like a historical novel. Thucydides includes long, detailed speeches that he had either heard first hand, had related to him, or has paraphrased based on the circumstances surrounding the speech. While some of the speeches are more accurate then others they do help the reader understand what was going on in the minds of the people at the time. They also help to break up what can sometimes be a monotonous account of the war.

The Bad: As alluded to above, the beginning of the book is filled with speeches. There are fewer and fewer speeches as the book progresses, until by chapter 8, they are omitted altogether. This omission of speeches does make the book a little dry, and tough to get through. I found that I couldn't read the last part of the book for as long a period of time as I could the beginning, and my breaks became more frequent.

The book ends in 411 BC, 7 years before the war ended. One can only imagine how great an accomplishment this book might have been, had Thucydides been able not only to write about the entire war, but had also been able to finish the book with the detail that he started it.

The Ugly: The edition I read was the Penguin Classics edition, while the book may be a classic, the Penguin edition was far from one. The print was terrible and uneven. The chapter numbers on the left boarder of the page, where fine until they hit triple digits, and then the '1' was either half printed or not there at all. Several pages where so poorly 'inked' that you could barely make out the letters.

The maps were useless except for the one on Attica. As another reviewer suggested, pay a little more and get a better quality edition.

Overall though this was a very good book.

Thucydides is a classic! How can you gave it anything less than five stars? As for the version of this work I got. I got this kindle version because it was free, but when I started reading it, I found you need maps and sidenotes to understand what you are reading. So, I checked out a hardback "The Landmark Thucydides" version of this work from the library and found that the maps and footnotes in that work made all the difference in the world. So, if you are planning to buy a kindle version of this work, I would recommend paying a few extra bucks and getting "The Landmark Thucydides" instead.

While "The History of the Peloponnesian War" is a book well worth reading, this particular print is terrible. The font is about 6, with no spacing between paragraphs, condensing the physical book to about half the size of a standard translation. It's unreadable and makes the otherwise enjoyable task of reading Thucydides an chore.

In 431 BC war broke out between Athens, the dominant empire in Greece at the time, and Sparta, her main rival. The first twenty years of the war are chronicled in this absorbing work: book eight breaks off mid-sentence, and Thucydides' account of the last seven years of the war has not survived.
Apart from fifteen pages in book one, in which he briefly recounts the events of the fifty years prior to the war, Thucydides never strays from the day-to-day and year-to-year details of the war. The only significant Greek historian who predates him is Herodotus, whose account ended where Thucydides' begins, in 479 BC; but Herodotus was a story-teller where Thucydides is a scholar. Reading Herodotus' "Histories" is more like sitting by the fire with a glass of brandy and an interesting friend. Thucydides reads like a textbook, and though this is one of his strengths, it also makes him a little harder for modern readers to approach. On the other hand, the very density of information feels quite modern, so that although the politics is alien, once you find your feet you'll be swept up by the story of a terrible war.
The book is full of names, places, and account of battles and intrigues. There are several maps at the back, which are a great help, but over and over again I found that a key place wasn't on the map, and there are no notes to help out. Where is Naupactus? Who are the Carians? Where do the Illyrians come from? Unlike the Penguin edition of Herodotus, which is packed with helpful notes, this edition provides the reader very little help. Too often I found I just had to wing it, guessing the importance of a name or the approximate location of a place from context. I'd recommend having a good classical dictionary handy while you read, if you're the sort who wants these questions answered.
Thucydides style is to alternate plain narration with speeches. The introduction (by Finley) makes it clear that these speeches are generally made up by Thucydides to fit what he thought would or should have been said. On the other hand, he was there for some of them, and did his best to interview eye-witnesses wherever he could, so the speeches tend to sound quite convincing.
Thucydides' passion for accuracy is what makes this book special. The account of a night battle in Sicily makes it clear how hard he worked to get the details right; he comments that this account is less likely to be accurate because the witnesses he interviewed were unable to see the whole battlefield, as they could in a day battle, and there's a fascinating chapter (book seven, chapter 44) where he talks about all the difficulties of reporting factually in these circumstances.
He sounds quite modern, and he is. He's the first truly modern historian, and would be worth reading for that reason alone. However, the story he tells, of twenty years of bitter conflict between two fine civilizations, is enthralling, and brilliantly told. Recommended.

Through the use of numerous interviews, tirelessly researching records, and gathering a great deal of evidence, Thucydides "History of the Peloponnesian War" stands as perhaps the first great work of nonfiction in Western history. After generations of epic poems and stories, which included every bit as much exaggeration and mythology as they did truth, Thucydides used the tools of evidence and objectivity to create a reliable historical record of the great war between Athens and Sparta to stand the test of time. This is vital reading if you have even a passing interest in military history, Ancient Greek history, or, really, any history at all.

Thucydides, an Athenian living in the 5th Century BC, writes the history of the Peloponnesian War, a war between the Greek city-states of Athens and Sparta. It is a must-read for anyone interested in history or Western civilization/thought and, so I have been told, for military strategists. Given that it is the story of a war that took place over 2400 years ago, however, it is probably not for anyone looking for an interesting diversion from the workaday world. For that, in the classical history genre, I would turn to Herodotus who provides a much more lively history, or for military history to Blackhawk Down, or for those interested in the grimmer parts of history, Daniel Judah Goldhagen's book on ordinary Germans' role in the holocaust and the glut of refuting books written in response. Those are better page-turners, so to speak.
However, for those who are assigned to read Thucydides in a classroom or for those interested in the classical studies or the origins of Western Civ, you will not regret having read Thucyides. Along with Herodotus' Histories, it is the foundation of modern historical writing and research (i.e., the telling of events from first hand knowledge or from original sources). Both Herodotus and Thucyidides were not above making up speeches out of whole cloth, but the events that they recounted were all based on actual accounts (although Herodotus was more willing to recount seemingly fantastical tenth hand accounts and therefore can be seen as a bridge between the myth-telling of Homer and the more rigorous history of Thucydides).
As stated above, Thucydides does obviously make up some of the speeches, but given the recent controversy over the authorized biography of Ronald Reagan, it seems that some modern historians are also guilty of this and Thucydides did his work before academic standards were created to say that this shouldn't be done.
Along with an account of the actual events of the War which is most interesting to classicists and military historians (neither of which I am, so I will not comment further on this), Thucydides gives us timeless lessons in politics, the risks of relying on luck and international relations/diplomacy. He also gives us his take on the dangers of too much democracy and mob rule (although he is likely biased on this issue since, although he was a general during the Peloponnesian War, the Athenians voted to banish him after one battle).
So, to some up, Thucydides History is not for the casual reader, but is an extremely interesting work and is a must-read for those interested in classical history.

Here is a classic pertinent for today. The prolonged struggle between the Peloponnesian and the Athenians drew some astute observations from Thucydides. No struggle militarily can be separated from a country's economy. There is more truth to the fact that conflict will continue as long as the belligerents have and economy to fuel it.

Thucydides, may be considered the World's 1st modern historian. He writes about who and what made The Peloponnesian War a true tragic end to the power of Athens and explains the roles of the main characters.

Come on.

There were two American tourists overheard by a guard at the Louvre to remark, "Well, I didn't think this museum was all that great." "Madam," sniffed the guard,"you do not judge the Louvre; the Louvre judges you."

I am not sufficiently bumptious to render judgement on Thucydides.

This review is for the Penguin paperback edition, published in 1954, and translated by Rex Warner. This edition is still in print, and can be found here, with the only difference being a slightly newer introduction by M. I. Finley (1970). Several newer translations have been published since Mr. Warner's--a Norton Critical Edition (Walter Blanco, 1998), Hackett Classics (Steven Lattimore, 1998), Oxford World's Classics (P.J. Rhodes, 2009), and a Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought edition (Jeremy Mynott, 2013). Many of the public domain editions of this book (and print-on-demand editions) use the Richard Crawley translation of 1874.

The fact that Penguin has not found it necessary to contract a new translation almost 60 years after Rex Warner's effort is interesting--I suppose it might suggest two ideas; one, that Mr. Warner's translation is superlative, and needs no improvement, or, two, that the translation is at least sufficient, especially after considering the cost of a new one. Since I have zero knowledge of Greek, the question of translators and their styles is important to me, and to some extent I have to rely on the judgment of the publishing house--or, perhaps it's better to say that I have to rely on my impression of the house's reputation. Since I can't believe that Penguin, Oxford, Norton or Cambridge would deliberately put out a substandard text, I suspect that any of these translations would be suitable, and would really come down to the way the reader responded to the individual translator's style; I ended up appreciating Rex Warner's 1954 effort a great deal--to the extent that, while comparing it to snippets of the others, I still preferred Mr. Warner's.

Unfortunately, the Penguin editions are lacking in supplementary material and good maps--this 1954 edition has four maps placed on the last pages (and it appears that the newer editions follow the same pattern), which I thought failed to match the intricacy of the text. It seems to me, based on the available 'look inside' features provided by the store, that all of the other choices have pro and cons associated with them, whether that be trade-offs between content, price and translation. The Cambridge edition, while the most expensive, has 30 maps placed at appropriate places within the text, and other material that seems as though it would be helpful to the student. The Oxford has a fifty page introduction and 9 maps, and is one of the least expensive options. And, while the Norton has no look inside feature, previous experience with these editions tells me that they generally have an interesting selection of supplemental essays and critical interpretations, which, as a non-student, I've always enjoyed for giving me a broader perspective.

I don't think any of these would be a bad choice for the initial experience with this work, and any particular version might be all the Thucydides one feels he or she needs. But with the penguin edition, even though I liked the translation, I also felt as though I was missing a lot of context, especially when it came to geography and familiarity with the different peoples. It wasn't until after I'd already begun reading that I learned of The Landmark Thucydides: A Comprehensive Guide to the Peloponnesian War by Robert Strassler, which uses the older, Richard Crawley translation, but appears to be jam-packed with supplemental material. For myself, this looks like a good solution and companion to what I've already read, and if, someday, I were to run across the Norton Critical edition, I would consider picking that up as well, simply for the critical essays.

As to Thucydides himself, all I can say is that I enjoyed the work immensely. With many of these ancient works, I've been intimidated, thinking that I will not be able to appreciate them in all their complexity. Part of this problem is due to the older translations, which could sometimes be so stilted that I just couldn't penetrate their meaning. I've run into several like this, and it's been a barrier to enjoying them for what they are worth. I did not have that problem with Warner's Thucydides--the style is formal, but not in a heavy-handed way, and relatively clear. Thucydides himself, as I understand it, was not the plainest writer--his own style is complex and layered, and it seems as though all the translations I was able to look at reflect this.

For those readers who are only interested in the events of the war itself, Donald Kagan's The Peloponnesian War might be a better choice. But Thucydides is more than simply an account of the war. In it's own way, his history is also an inquiry into values, and an examination of human nature. It is certainly not history as we generally think of it today, yet regardless of its deficiencies, it also seems greater than a just a narrative. It is mandatory for anyone interested in historiography.

There are four main translations of Thucydides available for the English reader:

Thomas Hobbes' 1628 version. Although made over 300 years ago this translation is still considered a classic by many in the English-speaking world. Hobbes is best known for writing "Leviathan" that classic work on Politics that all College students in the Western world for the past 200 years had to read. Do you like Shakespeare? If so give this edition a try. Hobbes vigorous and lively Jacobean English prose will enchant those more literary minded souls - however, Hobbes version has been noted for some inaccuracies due to his lack of proper understanding of the original Greek language text.

William Smith's 1754 translation. Most know of Crawley and Hobbes works but Smith's excellent 18th century version has been almost forgotten. I think you can only get it in a used edition on abebooks dot com. Smith's prose is as majestic as you you expect for a 18th century translation. While a bit hard to read for most modern readers Smith's prose is worth the effort if you stick with him. Some things were not meant to be "dumbed down". I compare reading Smith's Thucydides to plowing through Whiston's translation of Josephus.

The mid-Victorian (1874) Richard Crawley version is the one that most English speaking people were familiar with until the Penguin Books edition came out. This is a much easier version to understand than the Hobbes and Smith translations. While still retaining a very formal prose style it captures the Greek much more accurately than any previous version. This translation has the best balance between literary style and accuracy to the original text. This is the edition that many of our Grandparents and Great Grandparents read in school or College. Modern Library puts out a very affordable edition.

Rex Warner's Penguin edition. This is the version offered here. Warner is excellent for those who want to avoid the archaic and more challenging prose of Hobbes, Smith, or Crawley. He is very clear and lucid in his rendition of the text. This edition is more suitable for modern readers who want an easy to read prose that maintains accuracy. I think that Warner's translation is the only serious rival to Richard Crawley's version. For those of you who are first embarking on your exploration of Thucydides I would recommend this edition.

Thucydides writes in the Peloponnesian War that he wants his work to endure for all ages. In his opinion, the war was not only the greatest war which had ever been fought but was certain to be emblematic of future wars between men.

The book is timeless, of course, from a variety of perspectives. It is arguably the first work of modern history in that Thucydides tries to separate the veridical from the legendary. It is the major account for a civil war that would influence all of subsequent Western history. And it contains some of the most well-known oratory in all of classical civilization.

I would argue, however, that this work is also particularly resonant to our era. While for most people of the twentieth century history seemed to teach the lesson that democracies were victorious over totalitarian regimes this was directly counter to the experience and themes of Thucydides. The Peloponnesian War is, among other things, a rational account of why democratic Athens lost to totalitarian Sparta.

In short, Thucydides seems to think that Athenian democracy was successful when its leaders actually led the people and refused to cater to their whims.

This Athenian demos seems to have been, for all the glories of Athenian civilization, a rather undistinguished lot. Socrates could not find one of them who could explain the nature of virtue and they replied by finding Socrates guilty of corrupting the young and executed him. Thucydides also shows example after example of power hungry or glory seeking pseudo-leaders such as Alcibiades or Cleon using the desires of the demos to achieve their own ends.

Not to point a finger at any current leader but it would be obtuse to not perceive the parallels with the current rise of nationalism around the world. How many leaders of democratic states actually see themselves as needing to control some of the noxious desires of their electorate and how many simply pander to the “people’s” opinion?

It would not be the worst thing if American colleges selected a book for incoming students like Thucydides if it could make future leaders more cognizant of some of the perils of democracy and thus more likely to avoid them. Thucydides may not be the answer to modern nationalism but he certainly asks a still resonating question about the ultimate staying power of the project of democracy.

The story of the war between Sparta and Athens is well-told, careful with facts and conclusions, Thucydides offering neither the fun romantic details that Herodotus throws in, or so many self-justifying, "man behind the curtain" justifications of his historical method, as Polybius adds to his account of later battles. Thucydides cares about politics and war, and nothing more, it seems. But this is the period when much of Athen's greatest dramatic plays are being produced and shown, and the authoritative story of the war sets those dramas in an interesting light.

The Greeks were truly amazing. How did they manage to keep beating up on an enormous Persian Empire, vastly larger than themselves (the Persians hesitantly poke their smarting noses into this conflict towards the end, just a bit), while constantly fighting one another? Thucydides gives realistic, and small, figures for the armies sailing from town to town and laying waste. (Unlike, say, the huge numbers in Arrian's account of Alexander the Great's invasion of Persia.) He also describes the ins and outs of politics realistically, describing, as he promises, foibles and successes of all sides in this very complex war. Apparently the strength of the Greeks was precisely in its unity-within-disunity, "E Pluribus Unum." The Olympics represent that competitive nature, so different from the vast top-down empires that Greece competed with. In that sense, all this "squabbling" explains Greek success, and that also of other great civilizations that found unity within diversity: the twelve states of ancient Israel, the Warring States of China, Medieval Europe, and then the United States of America.

Another characteristic of Thucydides' account is his disinterest in religion. Also, it seems, in women, who are barely mentioned in this book. Herodotus is more fun, but Thucydides is undoubtedly the more reliable historian. And there are some fascinating episodes in this book, though Thucydides warns that he is probably making up most of the speeches that play so important a role in his account.

As other readers have pointed out, Warner gives a highly readable translation. Could use more notes, but there are at least several rough maps.

Well read by narrator David McCallion, hence the 5 stars. However: I am already interested in the book, and have read most of it before. Not sure Thucydides lends itself to easy listening if you aren't already interested.

I also object to the lack of transparency regarding the text. It took some detective work to try to determine which translation was being used. It's the 19th century (i.e., no copyright) text work of Richard Crawley. It is not the MI Finley translation that the store has for the paperback edition. Crawley's translation is freely available online. ARN publications should have given the translator credit, even if they didn't own him or anyone any royalties, and the store's catalogue shouldn't imply the audio version and the kindle version are the MI Finley translation.

Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War is an absolute must for anyone who has read or wishes to read classical history. Herodotus, who wrote of the earlier Persian war, may be recognised as the father of history, but it is Thucydides' book that became the template for classical history as a genre, a genre that would endure into the Byzantine empire and thus for a good millennium. The prose is elegant, the account well paced, the historian self-effacing. His history has both narrative depth and a bird's eye overarching coherence. Indeed, though Thucydides would have many imitators, there is an argument that he never had an equal.

The History of the Peloponnesian War tells the history of the long war between Athens and Sparta, and their respective allies, that took place between 431 and 404 BC. This is a blow-by-blow military history interspersed with diplomacy, and transcripts of the treaties themselves, as well as reports of the decision-making processes in each camp. It provides a matchless panorama of contemporary power relations and political mores. It is also a gripping account, including such episodes as the dramatic isolation and capture of an elite Spartan contingent on the island off Pylos that almost lost them the war, and of the disastrous Athenian expedition to Sicily. Be aware, however, that Thucydides' narrative ends on the twenty-first year of the war (for reasons that are unclear, since the author writes in several places that the war lasted twenty-seven years), so that if you want to follow the narrative until the end, you will need to reed Xenophon's continuing A History of My Times.

One of Thucydides' innovations was to introduce speeches in his account. These rarely were verbatim reproductions of what by said by the actors, but more often consisted of what Thucydides thought they had said or even 'what was in my opinion demanded of them by the various occasions'. This is important, because the use of speeches was imitated by classical authors sometimes quite clumsily and to the point of making some histories semi-fictional. With Thucydides, however, the speeches often serve to convey the historian's view of the parties' relative positions, the causes of events, or his analysis of their choices. It seems that he was loath to introduce such outside material in the narrative itself, and that the speeches were his remedy to the problem.

Though he was an Athenian, Thucydides was exiled at some point for having mismanaged a campaign in Thrace. This explains both his ability to obtain information on the Lacedaemonian side of the war and his restraint from overt partisanship. He seems to have been in favour of democracy over oligarchy, unlike many contemporary or near-contemporary Greek writers, but even that is difficult to establish, such was his control over his text. There are tantalising hints, finally, that the conflict he describes was more than what he made of it: Athens led a confederacy of mostly Ionian Greeks, and Lacedaemon Dorian Greeks. Many or most of Athens's allies were democracies, while those of Sparta were oligarchies. We will never know to what extent the war may have been an ethnic or an ideological clash, however: Thucydides' history is the only surviving account.

Much of the history is concerned with the detailed battle movements of the three major combatants - Lacedaemonions, Athenians, and Corinthians, which can become a little tedious. BUT, and it is a big "but", there is one most important, brilliant piece of oratory - Pericles famous funeral oration, which lays out the principles of Athenian democracy. This should be made compulsory reading for all politicians of every hue. Perhaps they should be made to learn it off by heart! I would hazard a guess that it was at the heart of the first draft of the American Constitution. It is the basis of moral government and democracy, and the words ring out over the centuries with the sound of emotional and intellectual truth. If for no other reason, read this section.

I really have the feeling that I am not knowledgable enough about the period in question in the Thucydides to provide any kind of reasonable context for the work. Instead, this review will focus on some reading tips and reactions aimed at the more generalist reader who may be attempting to get through the text.

First, the text is daunting. Be patient with it, and put it down if you need to. It pays off. I'm not someone who reads battle scenes with absorption, and still I found that if I absorbed the text in small enough doses, then I was able to follow with interest.

Second, use the appendices at the back. The explanations about the Spartan and Athenian Leagues, the Greek monetary system, and the Melian dialogues were actually quite helpful in places for reading the text. These appendices are provided in the Penguin edition of the Thucydides.

Third, take notes. There are a lot of big thoughts, and I found that I absorbed them better by writing them down for myself to think about later.

It is time-consuming to attempt the History of the Peloponnesian War. It is also worth it, to my mind. I got a lot out of reading it even without being a historian with expertise in the time and region. Give it a try, and give it the space that it deserves.

"So it is now reasonable for us to hope that the gods will be kinder to us, since by now we deserve their pity rather than their jealousy."

The Thucydides classic work of historical account is a great find among the free books. However, if you do want this free option, you will need at least a map of Ancient Greece to follow what is going on, Other guides might be useful as well, along with lectures available online. Still, hey, free Great Book!

Originally written around 400 B.C., the book represents such incredible talent in authorship and translation that it dwarfs the efforts of most. To collect so much information without electronic transmission of news and write it out by hand is amazing.

I wanted to review the size and scope of the work an may get a larger copy since the type is extremely small.

Anyone interested in history, anyone concerned about the future, should read Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War. To those readers who like to think, Thucydides is a starting premise. Gonzalo T. Palacios, Ph.D.

The first and last words on the perennial conflict between democracy and oligarchy. The fact that oligarchy wins is not surprising. What is surprising is that the book contains the best description of both the Viet Nam and the Iraq Wars, both of them initiated by democrats proposing to make the world safe for democracy.