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Summary: Praise for "The Landmark Thucydides"
Review: "Without question, this is the finest edition of Thucydides' history ever produced: It is a treasure."--Paul A. Rahne, The Washington Times"Thoroughly readable...Anyone interested in the culture of conflict - political as well as military, contemporary as well as ancient - can learn much from this durable work."--The Boston Globe "A magnificent edition."--David Denby, Los Angeles Times "Thanks to Strassler's efforts, generations of students, history buffs and others will finally understand..."--Harvard Business School Bulletin
Rating: 
Summary: What a Landmark!
Review: A completely superlative work! Thucydides wrote, during the infancy of history, a masterful study of the Great War of his time, the 27 year, with one brief interlude, struggle between Athens and Sparta for supremacy of the Greek world. It is a classic that deserves careful study by any student of ancient Greece, war, history or the human condition. Unfortunately it is a work that deals with a complex subject filled with names and allusions obscure to most modern readers. This work , with its extensive background information, dozens of maps and extensive footnotes, makes this classic intelligible to any student. An added bonus is the introduction by Victor Davis Hanson, a classics professor who can write, almost a contradiction in terms.
Rating:
Summary: What a Landmark!
Review: A completely superlative work! Thucydides wrote, during the infancy of history, a masterful study of the Great War of his time, the 27 year, with one brief interlude, struggle between Athens and Sparta for supremacy of the Greek world. It is a classic that deserves careful study by any student of ancient Greece, war, history or the human condition. Unfortunately it is a work that deals with a complex subject filled with names and allusions obscure to most modern readers. This work , with its extensive background information, dozens of maps and extensive footnotes, makes this classic intelligible to any student. An added bonus is the introduction by Victor Davis Hanson, a classics professor who can write, almost a contradiction in terms.
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Summary: Excellent Book, I highly recommend it.
Review: An excellent translation of a classic work. The maps, images, and background essays make this volume a truly enjoyable read. Once started I found it very difficult to put down. Now if we can only convince Mr. Strassler to do the same for Herodotus.
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Summary: A superb book.
Review: For those seeking to understand the nature of war and human behavior in war, this is the book to read. The story of greed and ambition - and the adverse effects it can have on policy - threads its way through the book. Thucydides' remark, "I have written this work, not as an essay which is to win applause of the moment, but as a possession for all time" is a very appropriate statement. The eternity of Thucydides' work is evident in the similarities of policy and war today as compared to the author's world. The numerous maps and footnoting within this book, makes it much easier to comprehend than other accounts of the Peloponnesian War.
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Summary: Superb edition
Review: Having struggled through the Hobbes translation (which I affectionately deemed the King James version of Thucydides), it was with immense pleasure that I found such a phenomenal text complete with annotations and maps. A true gem which has taken a notoriously difficult tome and made it very accessible. Highly recommended!
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Summary: An excellent edition - The best you can buy!
Review: I bought the Landmark Thucydides because it was the only hardback edition I could find. I was pleasantly surprised because it happens to be the best modern edition available. The editor, Robert Strasser, set out to make the most authoritative book on Thucydides's History of the Peloponnesian War, and I believe he has succeeded brilliantly. Strasser uses Richard Crawley's translation, apparently revised and updated. In any case the text is very good, though Thucydides syntax is sometimes complex and even a bit confusing. Strasser uses marginal notes besides each paragraph to summarize the events described in the text. The most valuable additions are the maps- there are maps every few pages, illustrating the geography described in the text as needed. Other welcome additions are a timeline, breaking down the events of the book according to date, appendices covering topics such as Athenian and Spartan government, trireme construction, land and naval warfare in ancient times, and even an essay on the monetary units and religious festivals used in the ancient world. There is also an introduction, discussing both the text and the author in detail and in the context of their time. There is also a full and complete index. If you want Thucydides, this is the book to buy!
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Summary: An Excellent Presentation
Review: I first read The Peloponnesian War in a beat-up, yellowed old Penguin edition. I forced myself through it, and found afterwards that I had neither really enjoyed nor understood this difficult book. A year later, I read The Landmark Thucydides, and stepped from night into day. This hefty paperback has a map at least every five pages, plus a generous set of appendices. The text was still slow going, but now as a consequence of enjoyment and reflection, rather than bewilderment and frustration. This is the version to get.
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Summary: Best book and version ever
Review: I found this book on sale in a bookstore in Nijmegen, Holland. It looked very appealing, I bought it, took it home with me and waited for several months before I read it. I am not a scholar, nor a historian, I am interested in history and in fact rather than fiction. The splendid appendices gave insight in much of the text and maps are a definite plus. As for the book itself. The further along you get, the more you are drawn into it. It really has the aura of an eye witness account. But somehow Thucydides manages to go beyond mere history and trancend the story into a classic Greek drama, the rise and fall of Athens. By the time the Athean fleet sails for Sicily I realised his very factual style of writing had turned an historic event of over two thousand years ago into harsh everyday reality. Here's a man struggling with depicting a war he was part of, with losses that he himself felt, with the downfall of a country that was his. After reading it, I read Livius. The difference to me is stunning. Whereas Livius writes from a very chauvinistic Roman viewpoint, Thucydides actually tried to write a factual account. Even more stunning that Livius didn't manage objectivity with events hundreds of years ago and Thucydides did with events in his own lifetime. Read it as you would read a newspaper. Recently, I've often seen the book misquoted and its authority misused, suggesting that few people actually read it. Do yourselves a favour, buy it, put it on your bookshelves and for God's sake, read it.
Rating:
Summary: Great presentation
Review: I have to say this is a fantastic presentation of Thucydides although I have not read him in the original Greek and therefore am not qualified to pass judgement on the translation. But I also notice that Victor Hanson provided the bibliography rather than the author and no sources are quoted for the essays at the back and the bibliography is mostly secondary sources. Yes, this book is meant for the masses, but I would prefer an approach more similar to the Penguin Herodotus. Nevertheless, the maps are useful and the book is well worth reading.
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