Description
Book SynopsisAthens and Sparta is an essential textbook for the study of Greek history. Providing a comprehensive account of the two key Greek powers in the years after 478 BC, it charts the rise of Athens from city-state to empire after the devastation of the Persian Wars, and the increasing tensions with their rivals, Sparta, culminating in the Peloponnesian Wars. As well as the political history of the period, it also offers an insight into the radically different political systems of these two superpowers, and explores aspects of social history such as Athenian democracy, life in Sparta, and the lives of Athenian women. More than this though, it encourages students to develop their critical skills, guiding them in how to think about history, demonstrating in a lucid way the techniques used in interpreting the ancient sources.
In this new third edition, Anton Powell includes discussion of the latest scholarship on this crucial period in Greek history. Its bibliog
Trade Review
A third edition of Athens and Sparta is most welcome, not least because the scholarship on Athens and Sparta continues to evolve rapidly, as does the contemporary context against which history is necessarily written. An updated version of Athens and Sparta would give readers access to the newest thinking about the ancient Greece, and make it possible to situate the contents in the landscape of current events and concerns.
- Professor Paul Christesen, Dartmouth College
We are all in huge debt to Anton Powell as publisher-scholar extraordinaire. With this new edition of Athens and Sparta he increases that debt mountain yet further. Intended as an ambitious combination of handbook for relative novices and provocation for established aficionados of Classical Greek history and culture, this accessibly written survey will in its revised form continue to inform and stimulate for many more years to come.
- Professor P.A. Cartledge, Clare College, Cambridge
Table of ContentsAbbreviations
Note for Second and Third editions
Introduction
1. The Delian League: Its Origins and Early History
2. from Delian League to Athenian Empire
3. The Athenian Empire
4. Sparta: Her Problems and Her Ingenuity, 478–431
5. The Peloponnesian War, 431–404
6. Life within Sparta
7. Athenian De¯ mokratia
8. Citizen Women of Athens
9. Religious Prophecy at Athens
Index
