Was Ancient Historian One Of The First Spin Doctors?

[Adsos Letter]

Source: NPR
All Things Considered

Without a man named Thucydides, the chances are slim that we'd know anything about the Peloponnesian War. A new book about the man attempts to correct what we know.

For more than a quarter of a century, starting in 431 B.C., two Greek cities faced off. Sometimes they confronted each other directly, and sometimes through proxies and allies. Thucydides recorded the details of the conflict throughout the war and, Yale professor Donald Kagan tells NPR's Guy Raz, "invented the modern understanding of history."

The war between Athens and Sparta has long since become an allegory of modern conflicts like the Cold War, Vietnam, Iraq — even Afghanistan. Historians and students of Thucydides all draw comparisons back to that ancient conflict. Kagan says Thucydides was the first person to apply rigorous scholarship in the approach to storytelling.

Kagan's own four-volume history of the Peloponnesian War is considered a seminal work, widely cited by students and scholars. His latest book, Thucydides: The Reinvention of History, delves into the ancient author and why he may not have always told the truth.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=121359301

[rampart]

1. be careful with kagan

he is a neocon signer of project for a new american century.

i'm not qualified to comment on the pelopenesian war, but kagan may be spinning as much as thucididies.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Kagan