Tao Te Ching
Thucydides Θουκυδίδης
460 – 400 BCE
"Father of realpolitik"
General, Athenian historian, and "father of "scientific history;" Thucydides wrote one of the world's most influential books, History of the Peloponnesian War. The United States Founding Fathers—ironically because he hated democracy—used him as a guide for their proposed decision making process. Still studied in military colleges and universities, his theories, analysis of historical events and international relations help explain the cycles of human nature interacting with war, plagues, and other various crises. Along with Hobbes and Machiavelli, a founding fathers of political realism, he focused on understanding the cause and effect of events but also believed that history is too irrational to predict.
Lineages
Greek Historians / Journalists
Eras
Western
Egyptian Civilization (3150 – 305 BCE)Greek Civilization (480 – 146 BCE)
The Axial Age, “The Great Leap of Being” (800 – 200 BCE)
Unlisted Sources
Quotes by Thucydides (3 quotes)
“Trees, though they are cut and lopped, grow up again quickly, but if men are destroyed, it is not easy to get them again.”
Comments: Click to comment
Quotes about Thucydides (2 quotes)
“[Although Thucydides was the] greatest historian, perhaps, who ever lived, [he represents] an interpretation, a point of view; and in this we need not agree with him.”
Comments: Click to comment
“In the war between Athenian democracy and the 'arrested oligarchic tribalism of Sparta', we must never forget Thucydides's 'involuntary bias', and that 'his heart was not with Athens, his native city.'”
Comments: Click to comment
Comments (0)