In this episode, we begin actually reading Thucydides, covering the first large chunk of Book I. We cover the pre-history of Greece in broad strokes, how Greece came to be relatively wealthy and powerful, how some of it poleis came to be richer and more powerful than others, a brief overview of the Persian Wars and what happened between them and the Pelopennesian War, and then begin a detailed overview of the inciting incidents for the war that serves as the subject for this book.

If you prefer video, you can find it here: https://youtu.be/0we0L4bK-7s

As always, if you want to dig into the practical application of the lessons we want to draw from these books, check out https://rhetoricfortherenaissanceman.com

In this short episode, our first "real" episode, I lay out some background and context for understanding who Thucydides was, why he wrote his history, and why we still care about it today.

As always, if you want to dig into the practical application of the lessons we want to draw from these books, check out https://rhetoricfortherenaissanceman.com

With this short introductory episode, we start our journey with Reading for the Renaissance Man, an effort to read and think about old books. I hope you'll join us!

To learn more about how to take the broad knowledge we explore in this podcast into more practical terms, check out https://rhetoricfortherenaissanceman.com for all of the best ancient wisdom on how to craft what you have to say, whether spoken or written, to be as persuasive as possible.