In the late 5th century BCE Athens and her allies were in a bitter conflict with the Peloponnesian League, led by Sparta. For 27 years ancient Greece was in a state of brutal civil war due to Athens’ outward expansion and Sparta’s effort to quell it.
Hanson's Approach
Hanson breaks the war into categories instead of using a chronology of events. With chapters like Fire, Disease, Terror, and Walls he describes the damaging of the land, the plague that crippled Athens, revolutions, and sieges, respectfully while all the while having an undercurrent of chronological events and incidents that defined the war. Hanson’s uncommon approach to a commonly cited historical event has its weaknesses, but coupled with the long list of existing historical explanations Hanson’s strength in his approach is its divergence from the norm.
Hanson's Warning to America
Immediately in Hanson’s text he employs analogies and broad statements about what the Peloponnesian War was like: “The struggle much more resembles the seemingly endless killing in Northern Ireland, the French and American quagmires in Vietnam, the endless chaos of the Middle East, or the Balkan crises of the 1990s.” He even goes as far as to utilize the analogy “Athens as America.”
Essentially a civil war between Athens’ democratically driven machine and Sparta’s inflexible oligarchy Hanson draws on the American Civil War, America’s unwavering drive to spread their democracy abroad, and American arrogance concerning power and ideals as references. Hanson drives home the idea that Sparta felt forced to defend themselves because of their suspicion that Athens strained other nations to adopt the democratic model, an obvious contemporary parallel with modern America.
Hanson’s judgment to paint a two and a half century old ordeal in a modern light is simple and draws on contemporary history and the age old idiom “history repeats itself” in an attempt to not only educate, but to force debate, and—for strong advocates of the idiom—to warn.
Problems with Hanson's Approach
Hanson’s use of analogy and the contemporary are useful tools in understanding aspects of the ancient Peloponnesian War, but there are weaknesses in his collection. Reiterated from before: Hanson uses strong and unwavering analogies straight away in his work, essentially pigeonholing himself and the reader for the remainder of the book. Hanson draws on aspects of the conflict that are ideal for analogous relations with contemporary history, but in doing so he forces the reader to draw on modern events to explain the ancient histories even when he may not draw from modern times explicitly.
Primary writings are both helpful and hurtful in the illustrating of events long past. Issues that arise from Hanson’s text are simply a lack of sources, along with where those sources transpired. Though there are an endless number of modern sources explaining the Peloponnesian War there are few ancient works and primary texts that explicate the conflict. Arguably the most important primary text is the history written by Thucydides, but this provides difficulties. Thucydides was himself an Athenian, and a proud one, which brings forth the problem of bias in his work; and much like we see bias in Hanson’s history so too we can draw out bias in Thucydides’ text as well.
Worth the Read
Through all the problems though emerges a well written slice of history, given to us in a way that provides for better understanding of an ancient conflict through a contemporary lens. The strength of this book is its relation to other histories of the Peloponnesian War. Hanson’s text is not another cut and dry chronological account but a refreshing and engaging view of a war that—thought it happened over two centuries ago—seems all to contemporary.
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