Thucydides kickoff call
Thank you for the great call today to kickoff Thucydides. We touched on key themes concerning Herodotus and Thucydides, Thucydides historic method/bias/style, the relevance of Thucydides to America today, Iraq war, WW1, the Cold War, and the power of Thucydides’ commitment to write “for all time.”
Next steps:
— Thucydides Book 1
We are officially kicking off reading Book 1 of “The Landmark Thucydides” by Robert Strassler
— Recording of the call
The recording will be up in a day or so. I’ll send an email when it’s ready to be listened to.
— Book review
Victor Davis Hanson, who wrote the introduction to our “Landmark Thucydides” book, also recently published his own book on the Peloponnesian War. The New York Times reviewed the book and in the review discussed Hanson’s perspective on Athens of the fifth century and its relevance to the U.S. of the 21st century.
“WHY should a distinguished classical scholar like Victor Davis Hanson provide us with yet another book about the Peloponnesian War? He is in no doubt: he is writing a tract for the times. ‘Perhaps never,’ he insists, ‘has the Peloponnesian War been more relevant to Americans than to us of the present age.’ “
see the NY Times review here.
— Next call: Saturday, March 11 at 12 noon
Our next call will be Saturday, March 11 at 12 noon; we’ll focus on Book 1
— Field trip to the opera
Nancy Kopans is going to suggest some dates to go to the opera in NY; more on this soon.
— Field trip to the Met/Dinner with a professor
I’m going to organize a field trip to the Met/dinner with one of the professors for sometime this summer (possibly around my 40th birthday! – more on that soon).
Thanks!
Phil
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