The History of the Peloponnesian War: Revised Edition

'With icy remorselessness, it puts paid to any notion that the horrors of modern history might be an aberration - for it tells of universal war, of terrorism, revolution and genocide' Tom Holland

The long life-and-death struggle between Athens and Sparta plunged the ancient Greek world into decades of war. Thucydides was an Athenian and achieved the rank of general in the earlier stages of the war, and in this detailed, first-hand contemporary account he writes as both a soldier and a historian. He applies a passion for accuracy and a contempt for myth and romance in compiling a factual record of a ruinous conflict that would eventually destroy the Athenian empire.

Translated by Rex Warner with an introduction and notes by M. I. Finley

Author: Thucydides
Publisher: Penguin Group
Published: 09/30/1954
Pages: 656
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.05lbs
Size: 7.70h x 5.00w x 1.10d
ISBN: 9780140440393
Age Range: 18-UP

About the Author
Thucydides (c. 460 BC-400 BC) was a general who was exiled for his failure to defend the Greek city of Amphipolis in Thrace. During his exile, he began compiling histories and accounts of the war from various participants.

Rex Warner was a Professor of the University of Connecticut from 1964 until his retirement in He was born in 1905 and went to Wadham College, Oxford, where he gained a first in Classical Moderations, and took a degree in English Literature. He taught in Egypt and England, and was Director of the British Institute, Athens, from 1945 to 1947. He has written poems, novels and critical essays, has worked on films and broadcasting, and has translated many works, of which Xenophon's History of My Time and The Persian Expedition, Thucydides' The Peloponnesian War, and Plutarch's Lives (under the title Fall of the Roman Republic) and Moral Essays have been published in Penguin Classics.

M. I. Finley was a professor of ancient history and master of Darwin College, Cambridge. He died in 1986.