Thucydides The War of the Peloponnesians and the Athenians

Thucydides' classic work is a foundational text in the history of Western political thought. His narrative of the great war between Athens and Sparta in the fifth century BC is now seen as a highly sophisticated study of the nature of political power itself: its exercise and effects, its agents and victims, and the arguments through which it is defended and deployed. It is therefore increasingly read as a text in politics, international relations and political theory, whose students will find in Thucydides many striking contemporary resonances. This edition seeks to present the author and the text in their proper historical context. The new translation is particularly sensitive to the risks of anachronism, and the notes and extensive reference material provide students with all the necessary historical, cultural and linguistic background they need to engage with the text on its own terms.

List of maps; Preface; Introduction; Principal dates; Biographical notes; Greek deities, heroes and mythological figures; Greek terms for distances, coinage and the calendar; The War of the Peloponnesians and the Athenians; Appendix 1. Notes on the Greek text: variations from the OCT; Appendix 2. Thucydides in the ancient world: a selection of texts; Bibliography and further reading; Synopsis of contents; Synopsis of speeches; Glossary; Index of names; General index.

Jeremy Mynott is Emeritus Fellow of Wolfson College, Cambridge. He has contributed to the Cambridge Dictionary of Political Thought and Cambridge Reader in the History of Political Thought (both Cambridge University Press, forthcoming) and is also the author of several publications in natural history and ornithology.