The Plague of War, Jennifer T. Roberts
The Plague of War, Jennifer T. Roberts
List: $24.99 | Sale: $17.50
Club: $12.49

The Plague of War
Athens, Sparta, and the Struggle for Ancient Greece

Author: Jennifer T. Roberts

Narrator: Anne Flosnik

Unabridged: 13 hr 2 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 11/12/2019


Synopsis

In 431 BC, the long simmering rivalry between the city-states of Athens and Sparta erupted into open warfare, and for more than a generation the two were locked in a life-and-death struggle. The war embroiled the entire Greek world, provoking years of butchery previously unparalleled in ancient Greece. Whole cities were exterminated, their men killed, their women and children enslaved. While the war is commonly believed to have ended with the capture of the Athenian navy in 405 and the subsequent starvation of Athens, fighting in Greece would continue for several decades. The war did not truly end until, in 371, Thebes's crack infantry resoundingly defeated Sparta at Leuctra.

Jennifer Roberts's rich narrative of this famous conflict is the first general history to tell the whole story, from the war's origins down to Sparta's defeat at Leuctra. In her masterful account, this long and bloody war affected every area of life in Athens, exacerbated divisions between rich and poor in Sparta, and sparked civil strife throughout the Greek world. Yet despite the biting sorrows the fighting occasioned, it remains a gripping saga of plots and counter-plots, murders and lies, missed opportunities and last-minute reprieves, and, as the war's first historian Thucydides had hoped, lessons for a less bellicose future.

About Jennifer T. Roberts

Jennifer T. Roberts is professor of classics and history at the City College of New York and the City University of New York Graduate Center. Her many books include The Plague of War: Athens, Sparta, and the Struggle for Ancient Greece, Herodotus: A Very Short Introduction, and Athens on Trial: The Antidemocratic Tradition in Western Thought (Princeton).


Reviews

Ενας συνοπτικός απολογισμός του Πελοποννησιακού πολέμου, νηφάλιος και καλογραμμένος, χωρίς συμπάθειες και αντιπάθειες (εξαιρώ τον... λατρεμένο χαρακτηρισμό της Κορίνθου ως... "στρίγκλας"). Μεστή γραφή που δε σταματά στην εξιστόρηση των συμβάντων, αλλά περιλαμβάνει και κρίσεις, αξιολογήσεις και αποτι......more

Goodreads review by Mark

The Peloponnesian War is one of those subjects which, whenever a new book is published about it, begs the question, "do we really need another book on it?" This is understandable considering that 1) having been written about for nearly 2,500 years it has been one of the most worked-over events in hu......more

Goodreads review by James

This is an interesting history. I've read several histories of the Peloponnesian War and appreciate how difficult it must be to pack all of it into one volume. Jennifer Roberts, though, has approached it in a different way, and one I think successful. She does relate the military course of the war,......more