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Title: The Landmark Thucydides : A Comprehensive Guide to the Peloponnesian War by Victor Davis Hanson ISBN: 0-684-82790-5 Publisher: Free Press Pub. Date: 10 September, 1998 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.85 (34 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: An excellent edition - The best you can buy!
Comment: I bought the Landmark Thucydides because it was the only hardback edition I could find. I was pleasantly surprised because it happens to be the best modern edition available. The editor, Robert Strasser, set out to make the most authoritative book on Thucydides's History of the Peloponnesian War, and I believe he has succeeded brilliantly.
Strasser uses Richard Crawley's translation, apparently revised and updated. In any case the text is very good, though Thucydides syntax is sometimes complex and even a bit confusing. Strasser uses marginal notes besides each paragraph to summarize the events described in the text. The most valuable additions are the maps- there are maps every few pages, illustrating the geography described in the text as needed. Other welcome additions are a timeline, breaking down the events of the book according to date, appendices covering topics such as Athenian and Spartan government, trireme construction, land and naval warfare in ancient times, and even an essay on the monetary units and religious festivals used in the ancient world. There is also an introduction, discussing both the text and the author in detail and in the context of their time. There is also a full and complete index. If you want Thucydides, this is the book to buy!
Rating: 5
Summary: A Good First Thucydides
Comment: I read this edition along with the Hobbes translation (Green, ed.) and despite having read through Thucydides several times before, Thucydides, despite claiming to write a completely objective history, the composition of the work shows through quite a bit. The narrative is not linear, with digressions, flashbacks, and other tropes which makes the book hard to follow at times. In any case, the events of the war are so complex, covering such a long time, and in so many theaters of operation, that there is no single way to give a coherent recounting of the events.
All the maps are very clean, freshly rendered and easy to read. In addition to a few omnibus maps in the back matter, there are many smaller maps throughout the book, each having only as many landmarks as are necessary to illuminate the particular passage. This turns out to be particularly helpful. One can find a place like Naupactus, (not obscured by too many dots and words and unclear print) and understand why it was so important for Athens to hold onto. The other editorial matter are also very helpful. Using the index and the notes, the reader can follow the stories of the people, places, and themes invovled.
If you are at all concerned about Ancient Greece, or history, this book is worth it, for the maps alone even if for nothing else.
Rating: 5
Summary: Best book and version ever
Comment: I found this book on sale in a bookstore in Nijmegen, Holland. It looked very appealing, I bought it, took it home with me and waited for several months before I read it. I am not a scholar, nor a historian, I am interested in history and in fact rather than fiction. The splendid appendices gave insight in much of the text and maps are a definite plus.
As for the book itself. The further along you get, the more you are drawn into it. It really has the aura of an eye witness account. But somehow Thucydides manages to go beyond mere history and trancend the story into a classic Greek drama, the rise and fall of Athens. By the time the Athean fleet sails for Sicily I realised his very factual style of writing had turned an historic event of over two thousand years ago into harsh everyday reality. Here's a man struggling with depicting a war he was part of, with losses that he himself felt, with the downfall of a country that was his.
After reading it, I read Livius. The difference to me is stunning. Whereas Livius writes from a very chauvinistic Roman viewpoint, Thucydides actually tried to write a factual account. Even more stunning that Livius didn't manage objectivity with events hundreds of years ago and Thucydides did with events in his own lifetime.
Read it as you would read a newspaper.
Recently, I've often seen the book misquoted and its authority misused, suggesting that few people actually read it.
Do yourselves a favour, buy it, put it on your bookshelves and for God's sake, read it.
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Title: The Peloponnesian War by Donald Kagan ISBN: 0670032115 Publisher: Viking Press Pub. Date: 08 May, 2003 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: The Histories (Oxford World's Classics) by Herodotus, Carolyn Dewald, Robin A. Waterfield ISBN: 0192824252 Publisher: Oxford Press Pub. Date: June, 1998 List Price(USD): $9.95 |
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Title: Ripples of Battle : How Wars of the Past Still Determine How We Fight, How We Live, and How We Think by VICTOR HANSON ISBN: 0385504004 Publisher: Doubleday Pub. Date: 16 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $27.50 |
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Title: The Western Way of War: Infantry Battle in Classical Greece by Victor Davis Hanson, John Keegan ISBN: 0520219112 Publisher: University of California Press Pub. Date: 11 February, 2000 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
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Title: The Soul of Battle : From Ancient Times to the Present Day, How Three Great Liberators VanquishedTyranny by Victor Davis Hanson ISBN: 0385720599 Publisher: Anchor Pub. Date: 17 April, 2001 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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