Thucydides and the Idea of History

Reviews / Votes

'This book offers a lucid and compelling analysis of how readings of Thucydides have shaped modern ideas of history and of how changing notions of history have in turn shaped the idea of Thucydides. Well-written and well-organised, it is accessible to students and scholars of ancient history and literature as well as to all those interested in the development of historiography.' Tim Rood, Tutorial Fellow in Classics, St Hugh's College, Oxford and author of Thucydides: Narrative and Explanation 'This book makes an important threefold contribution to scholarship. In the first place, it offers an authoritative account of the importance of Thucydides in nineteenth-century debates about history and historiography, and it does so as part of a larger account of the changing fortunes of Thucydides in the West, from fourteenth-century Florence (Bruni, Machiavelli) to the importance of Thucydides in international relations in the twenty-first century. In this first respect - as a contribution to classical reception studies and intellectual history - it is an original and pivotal study, all the more so for its transnational and trans-cultural focus: German, French, English and North American traditions of reading and receiving Thucydides are all represented. Secondly, we are given a fresh account of the development of historiography and historical criticism in the nineteenth century, neatly focalized through the reception of Thucydides. And thirdly, Morley's study shows that contemporary scholars of Thucydides are engaged in debates that have their roots in controversies that go back to, and in many cases predate, the nineteenth century. While classicists and ancient historians might be alert to criticism of Thucydides in antiquity - the criticism of a Dionysius, a Cicero, a Plutarch, or a Lucian - we seldom reflect that both our conception of Thucydides and our idea of history have been shaped by the historiographical debates of the fifteenth century onwards. Not only are Morley's studies of Thucydides' readers and critics of great interest for Thucydidean criticism and scholarship in the present, but they also offer material for reflection on the relay between antiquity and modernity and the history of our apparently 'modern' ideas. This is a highly original, even masterful, book that deserves a broad, cross-disciplinary readership.' - Emily Greenwood, Professor of Classics, Yale University, author of Thucydides and the Shaping of History 'In this eye-opening book, Neville Morley gets behind the recent election of Thucydides as the Father of Neo-Conservatism to explore his long and complex role as the Father of History. Morley's subtle analysis reveals how modernity has insistently returned to Thucydides to debate the very idea of history. From critique to science, art to authority, Thucydides became a lightening-rod for discussions about the identity and conduct of the historian. This book is essential reading for anyone interested not just in the legacy of Thucydides but also more generally in discussions of historical method.' Miriam Leonard, Professor of Greek Literature and its Reception, University College London