Thucydides: War, Empire, and Liberty
This is a Reading List based upon a Liberty Fund Conference on “Thucydides on Empire, War, Democracy, and Liberty.”
Thucydides on Empire, War, Democracy, and Liberty
Guide to the Readings
Editions used:
- Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War Part I, in The English Works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury; Now First Collected and Edited by Sir William Molesworth, Bart., (London: Bohn, 1839-45). 11 vols. Vol. 8.
- Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War Part II, in The English Works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury; Now First Collected and Edited by Sir William Molesworth, Bart., (London: Bohn, 1839-45). 11 vols. Vol. 9.
See also:
- Authors: Ancient Greece
- Collections: War and Peace
- Collections: History
For additional reading see:
Session I: Origins
Thucydides’ Peloponnesian War
- Book I, 1.1–1.7, 1.13–1.55, 1.66–1.97, and1.139–1.146
Session II: Spartan and Athenian Strategy
Thucydides’ Peloponnesian War
- Book II, 2.1, 2.8–2.27, and 2.34–2.65
Session III: Human Nature, Civil War, and Justice
Thucydides’ Peloponnesian War
Session IV: Peace, Diplomacy, and the Melian Dialogue
Thucydides’ Peloponnesian War
- Book V, 5.6–5.24, 5.35–5.49, and 5.74–5.116
Session V: Imperial Overstretch and the Sicilian Expedition
Thucydides’ Peloponnesian War
- Book VI, 6.1, 6.6–6.52, 6.60–6.61, and 6.88–6.93
Session VI: Statesmanship, War, and Morality
Thucydides’ Peloponnesian War
- Book VII, 7.1–7.3, 7.10–7.19, 7.27–7.30, 7.37–7.49, and 7.72–7.87
Reading Lists
- Addison and Smith: Freedom and Responsibility
- American Liberty in Political Documents before 1787
- An Introduction to the Major Writings of Ludwig von Mises
- Banned Books
- British and French Sources of American Constitutionalism
- Burlamaqui, Bayle: Freedom Tolerance, Natural Law
- Cato’s Letters: Liberty and Responsibility
- Cobden: Liberty and Peace
- Constant’s Principles of Politics
- Emerson on Anti-slavery
- Eric Mack, An Introduction to the Political Thought of John Locke
- Gibbon and the Rise of Christianity and Islam
- Homer’s Iliad: Liberty and Responsibility
- Hume, Smith, and Ferguson: Wealth, Commerce, and Corruption
- Hume: History of England
- James Tyrrell on Authority and Liberty
- Jefferson-Hamilton Debate
- John Milton: Liberty in his Prose and Poetry
- Major Political Thinkers: Plato to Mill
- Mandeville: Vice, Virtue and Liberty
- Mill-Macaulay Debate on Government
- Old Testament and English Political Thought
- Political Sermons of the Founding Era
- Readings from the OLL Reader
- Rousseau and Hume: Contrasting Views of Liberty
- Shakespeare and Marlowe: Liberty in Four Plays
- Shakespeare: Liberty and Responsibility
- Socialist Tracts
- Sophocles and Aeschylus: Blood Justice and the Founding of Legal Order
- Tacitus: Liberty and Tyranny in the Annals
- The Ruling Class and the State: An Anthology
- Thomas Paine and American Liberty
- Thucydides: War, Empire, and Liberty