Hometown hero (if you are into Greek history, anyway)

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A University of Rochester emeritus professor of history, Perez Zagorin, has written a book on Thucydides titled Thucydides: An Introduction for the Common Reader.

Here’s a review, the author of which, James P. Holoka of Eastern Michigan University, says the book will “be most useful to an audience of undergraduates and other ‘intellectually curious people,'” and that Zagorin

is to be congratulated for his well-informed, evenhanded, readable, and eupeptic presentation of a formidable ancient historian.

“Eupeptic.” I had to look that one up to be sure. It means “having good digestion; cheerful, optimistic.”

Peter Stothard reviewed the same book last month for the Wall Street Journal (subscription required), writing

“Thucydides: An Introduction for the Common Reader” is a useful book. Yet as Mr. Zagorin himself recognizes, a great historian claimed by so many generals and politicians in so many struggles over so many years cannot always be understood through the minds of others. Mr. Zagorin calls for his own readers to become readers of Thucydides and to judge for themselves whether, for example, the Peloponnesian War was truly inevitable or might have been avoided by better diplomacy.

Oh, for a few more hours in the day . . .

5 thoughts on “Hometown hero (if you are into Greek history, anyway)”

  1. I’m a big fan of Greek history (or history of the West and the East in general) here. So I’m going to check that book out. :)

    Interesting that the professor writes mostly about Thucydides himself, not about the famous historical work he wrote. Here’s a quote to illustrate what I just said: “Mr. Zagorin attempts to explain Thucydides’ thinking rather than the course of the Peloponnesian War itself”. I betcha that this book is mainly about the ‘history of philosophy’ (or historiography) rather than the war history itself, but interesting nonetheless. :P

  3. Kirsten,

    All my rejections thus far are from agents I’m querying. Most are based on just the letter, but I’m in the habit of enclosing a synopsis whether requested or not (whoa! Call me a rebel!), and if permitted by the agent’s guidelines I’ll also provide a brief sample. First chapter, first ten pages, whatever. One of the email guidelines actually asked for first 50 pages, but that’s exceptional.

    None has indicated any interest at all. The current “score” is: total queries sent out, 47. Total responses (all “no thanks”), 14. I’ll keep sending till I run out of names.

    John

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