Donald Kagan - "Ancient Greek history" - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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A great lecture series by Donald Kagan on the ancient Greeks, from Mycenae to Philip of Macedon. He brings the period to life, including the various Greek city-states such as Athenian democracy and the Spartan regime, the Peloponnesian War, and the great leaders like Pericles and Demosthenes. I was struck by this world's incredible violence and insecurity, and the belief system they created to make sense of it.

All this provides explanation for the context in which Greek mythology and philosophy could emerge, later taken on by Rome, to form the foundations of political theory to this day. I found it very helpful to understanding and making more human and alive the classic texts (in my case Thucydides and Xenophon).

The lecture series is also something of an argument about the uniqueness and rarity of freedom and the West's exceptional character in that regard. I think much of this is contestable but his presentation - as sort of continuity of the torch of freedom from the Greeks through the age of Hitler to today - is very useful for understanding the deeper thought behind the support for imperialism of many American intellectuals. He's also the father of noted ideologues of the American Empire Fred and Robert Kagan.

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