book report- The Peloponnesian War by Bagnall

Nigel Bagnall was a retired British army Chief of Staff when he wrote this book. He died shortly after he wrote it. Most of what we know about the war between the city states comes from Thucydides and Xenophon and Plutarch who Bagnall references frequently, but not slavishly. He freely questions their accounts and contrasts them with other accounts or with the possibilities of reality or the subsequent narrative of the storyteller. For the bible student, hearing about the involvement of Cyrus and Artaxerxes and other Persian kings gives a greater context to understand the world they lived in and the cameos they make in the post-exilic Old Testament stories. For citizens of countries currently at war, the difficulties of democracy, ambition, money, morale, tactics, and their interplay rings a familiar tune.