ペロポネソス戦争を記録した『戦史』の著者トゥキディデス（紀元前460年頃-紀元前395年）の思想と背景を紹介します。この争いは紀元前431年、スパルタが強力な海軍連合を率いるアテナイに宣戦布告に始まり、紀元前404年のアテナイ降伏まで続きました。目の前で繰り広げられた戦争の原因と経過をトゥキディデスは人間の本性という観点から記述しました。当時の国際情勢、そして紀元前5世紀の知的伝統の二つの文脈から『戦史』を検証し、『歴史』を著したヘロドトス、詩人ホメーロス、その他の悲劇作家などとの関係や、古代ギリシア世界を永遠に変えた戦争の複雑な力学を考察します。
 

• Teaches about an extraordinary thinker who provided much of the basis of subsequent historiography
• Examines Thucydides' account of the war in the context both of the international situation in the classical Greek world and of the intellectual traditions of the fifth century BCE
• Offers sophisticated interpretations without the necessity for large background knowledge

　　　　
In 432 BCE the powerful city-state of Sparta on the peninsula of the Peloponnesus in southwestern Greece declared war on Athens, head of a mighty naval coalition. The war would last until Sparta finally brought Athens to its knees in 404. The Athenian aristocrat Thucydides, suspecting the magnitude of the conflict that was unfolding before his eyes, at once undertook to record its history, exploring the causes and course of the war in the context of his great interest: human nature. An introduction to Thucydides' thought and background, this book examines Thucydides' account of the war in the context both of the international situation in the classical Greek world and of the intellectual traditions of the fifth century BCE, exploring the historian's connection to prose writers like Herodotus as well as poets like Homer and the tragedians, and investigating the complex dynamics of the war that changed the Greek world forever.