Donald Kagan

"The Archidamian War remains sober, judicious, and comprehensive. There is nothing else like it available in English-certainly nothing that takes all the modern scholarship into account.... But perhaps the most valuable achievement of the book is its carefully reasoned demolition of Thucydides's view-warmly embraced by too many scholars-that Pericles's war strategy was justifiable." — Peter Green - Times Literary Supplement This book, the second volume in Donald Kagan's tetralogy about the Peloponnesian War, is a provocative and tightly argued history of the first ten years of the war. Taking a chronological approach that allows him to present at each stage the choices that were open to both sides in the conflict, Kagan focuses on political, economic, diplomatic, and military developments. He evaluates the strategies used by both sides and reconsiders the roles played by several key individuals.

"Kagan's book is a contribution of considerable distinction, scrupulously fair, carefully argued, and lucidly written. And, what is more, it is persuasive.... Kagan sets out the story in detail and with acumen. The case has been adumbrated before-but never presented with such thoroughness."-Journal of Interdisciplinary History The first volume of Donald Kagan's acclaimed four-volume history of the Peloponnesian War offers a new evaluation of the origins and causes of the conflict, based on evidence produced by modern scholarship and on a careful reconsideration of the ancient texts. He focuses his study on the question: Was the war inevitable, or could it have been avoided? Kagan takes issue with Thucydides' view that the war was inevitable, that the rise of the Athenian Empire in a world with an existing rival power made a clash between the two a certainty. Asserting instead that the origin of the war "cannot, without serious distortion, be treated in isolation from the internal history of the states involved," Kagan traces the connections between domestic politics, constitutional organization, and foreign affairs. He further examines the evidence to see what decisions were made that led to war, at each point asking whether a different decision would have been possible.