The Peloponnesian War by Donald Kagan Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of The Peloponnesian War
Book Review: The First "World War"?
Summary: 5 Stars
Kagan has produced a one-volume epitome of his multi-volume history of the Peloponnesian War and readers should be grateful to him. At almost seven hundred pages, it offers sufficient depth to satisfy the discriminating history lover without requiring detailed prior knowledge of Greek institutions, events or personalities. Kagan's analyses of events are always sage and they occasionally bear relevance to the practices of later ages. As in his short history of Pericles, Kagan writes a vigorous, lucid prose that compels attention and belief.
David Keymer
Modesto CA
Book Review: The best war ever
Summary: 4 Stars
If only Jonah Lomu got his kidney transplant earlier . . . If only Herb Elliot had stuck around to race Peter Snell in the 1500 at Tokyo . . . and if only Thucydides had finished his history of the Peloponnesian war. I mean, the Athenians have been wiped out in Sicily, the Spartans are outside the Long Walls and building a fleet with Persian gold, and he STOPS right there?!
This is a gap that needed filling, and Kagan tries nobly to fill it. Unfortunately, I am not sure he was quite the right author, at least on his own. He obviously knows the history and loves it. While paying due homage to the master, he is unafraid to present his own perspectives, defending many decisions of the Athenian democracy that Thucydides criticised.
Yet he doesn't quite have the dramatic skill that the greatness of the story demands. This war had everything: two great powers and former allies fighting to the brink of destruction, despite powerful friends of peace on both sides; the clash between oligarchy and democracy, both between and within states; the complexities of alliance politics, as each side tries to coax or threaten money, ships, men and bases out of their "friends"; the strategy of a land power fighting a sea power; and the sheer brilliance and opportunism of the leading commanders.
Most of the time, the story tells itself. It is amazing that a clash between two city states, with populations in the tens of thousands, could result in a conflict matching, and in some ways surpassing, twentieth century world wars in variety and complexity. But it still feels like work rather than the page turner it could have been.
Book Review: Ticks the boxes, but phew!!
Summary: 2 Stars
This is a reduction of Donald Kagan's own more scholarly work on the subject for the ordinary reader. If I could have the last 3 weeks of my life back, I'd wait for the Reader's Digest version.
Too much detail, a kaleidoscope of characters and locations coming and going, and no real overview. The maps are poor and the descriptions of battles are limited.
To the author, who has been immersed in the subject, it may seem like a summary. To someone who picks it up for a read over Christmas, it's a 500 page list of events which take place over decades.
Book Review: Why read Thucydides when you've got Kagan?
Summary: 5 Stars
Reading Dr. Kagan's masterfully and scholarly account of the Peloponnesian War is pure joy for its depth, scholarship and narrative flow. After reading the dense and long-winded Thucydides, the non-specialist such as myself has no need to look into any other source for understanding of this devastating conflict. Of particular note are all the excellent maps and the thrilling chapter on the Athenian's disasterous expedition against Syracuse (also the only fun part of Thucydides). However, if this book goes into another edition, a glossary of names added to the back would be very helpful for non-specialists--something akin to the one found at the end of Xenophon's/ Warner's "The Persian Expedition" or Fagles' translations of Homer. Trying to keep all the different personalities straight can takes its toll after a while.