Thucydides and Political Order

Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War is considered in history and political science as a text of fundamental disciplinary relevance. However, neither discipline takes the other discipline into account during debates about Thucydides. Following Thucydides and Political Order: Concepts of Order and the History of the Peloponnesian War, this collection features scholarly work that asks what political order Thucydides envisioned, against which he might have judged the events he described. The contributors explore the role that Thucydides plays as a model theorist or representative of an ideal political order in philosophical traditions and schools of thought.

Christian R. Thauer is Senior Lecturer in International Relations and at the Center for German Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. He holds a PhD from the European University Institute in Florence, Italy. His thesis was awarded the International Studies Association International Political Economy (ISA-IPE) Best Dissertation Prize 2009/10. Before joining the Hebrew University, Thauer taught at the Freie Universität Berlin, Germany and was a Visiting Fellow at the University of Washington, Seattle, USA. Thauer is the co-editor of Business and Governance in South Africa and has published articles on political economy and governance. Christian Wendt is Professor of Ancient History at Freie Universität Berlin, Germany and head of the Berlin Thucydides Center. His publications include Sine fine (2008) and numerous articles on Greek historiography and political thought, ancient international law, and the reception of Thucydides in modern political theory. He is the co-editor of 2000 Jahre Varusschlacht (2012) and is currently co-editing a volume on ancient sea power.

1. 'I have set out first the grievances and disputes:' Greek international law in Thucydides; Ernst Baltrusch 2. Thucydides and Order; Richard Ned Lebow (King's College, London/ Dartmouth College, Hanover) 3. Democracy without an Alternative: Thucydides, Sparta and Athens; Wolfgang Will 4. Leo Strauss's Thucydides and the Meaning of Politics; Liisi Keedus 5. The Power and Politics of Ontology; Christine Lee 6. The Fall of the Roman Republic: Sallust's Reading of Thucydides; Klaus Meister 7. Thucydides as a 'statesmen's manual'?; Christian Wendt