The History of Literature Podcast is a member of the Podglomerate Network and Lit Hub Radio.

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Hello, more than 2,000 years ago, an author living in Greece wrote a book,

A Possession for All Time, he said, a grandiose statement to make.

But since the book is still with us, I think you'd have to say he's been more right than wrong.

The reason why Thucydides' classic work, the history of the Peloponnesian War, is still with us,

is in large part due to the historical approach embedded in that statement.

Thucydides wasn't writing to persuade a handful of close friends and decision-makers.

He wasn't settling scores.

He wasn't passing along entertaining myths and legends.

He was writing as best he could a sweeping narrative of a war between Athens and Sparta

that pulled in Greek states from across the region.

The account of what happened and reflections on what it meant from a military, political,

and moral perspective is still a gripping reed, even if the after-effects of that particular

conflict have been rubbed away like grooves in the sand as the lapping waves take their toll over time.

The book has survived longer than the war, and we turn to it again and again as new generations of

thinkers and strategists seek to understand today's challenges from civil war to widespread plague to the

nature of political power. On our show today, we will talk to a translator of an exciting new

translation of the history of the Peloponnesian War and to the woman who wrote the introduction

...