Thucydides and Contemporary Politics: A Syllabus
Thucydides continues to be the ancient author for the early twenty-first century, widely cited as an authority on US-China relations, inter-state relations in general, the rise of populism and the crisis of democracy — and getting two unexpected boosts this summer, first from the inclusion of a “Thucydides” quote in Wonder Woman, and second from the news that he’s now the must-read author in the White House, even with the current revolving-door approach to personnel.
Predictably, the connection between most of these references and allusions and the “real” Thucydides is loose at best. Rather than another piece on misreading and misappropriation — I don’t see much reason to modify the argument offered in my Eidolon article from last year, “Why Thucydides?” — the aim of this “syllabus” is to give you links to the most important examples of how people are reading Thucydides in relation to contemporary politics and the most interesting and perceptive discussions, together with some minimal commentary to help contextualize them.
I’ve marked the things that I think are most essential for understanding the theme with an asterisk — there’s an awful lot of stuff here, and this is just a selection. However, it’s also worth noting from the beginning that this is a very homogeneous discussion, with a lot of Serious White Male Commentators reflecting seriously on The Pressing Issues of the Day. For all my belief that Thucydides can usefully be read through a feminist lens, as someone who seeks to expose and deconstruct the aggressive masculine logic of war and politics, the vast majority of his modern admirers are all too happy to assimilate him to that logic, and treat him without hestitation as a fellow Serious White Male Commentator.
Rather, as the great Nicole Loraux remarked, “Thucydide n’est pas un collègue…”
The “Thucydidean Moment” of 2017: Thucydides in the White House
*Michael Crowley kicks off the discussion of “Why everyone in the White House is reading Greek history” in Politico
“It’s all about the realism,” claims a Foreign Affairs review essay by Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins on a new book on realism
I argue that there are several different Thucydideses in play here
*There’s good news, and bad news, argues International Relations professor Dan Drezner
Steve Bannon’s desktop password was “Sparta,” and the far right have long been obsessed with Thermopylae
Bannon’s grasp of Thucydides is predictably shaky, argues Osita Nwanevu at Slate; a Financial Times blogger is likewise unimpressed
Victor Davis Hanson offers his view of why Thucydides is the perfect author for the current regime
The Proximate Cause: the rise of ‘Thucydides’s Trap’
Harvard International Relations academic Graham Allison’s 2012 Financial Times article ($), and a New York Times article the following year, sketched out the idea that Thucydides is a key text for understanding US-China relations and the dangers of an escalating conflict.
*This was followed by a longer version in 2015 in The Atlantic, pulling together arguments he had been making for a while in a popular, easily tweetable form. This is the piece that has been most often referenced, at least until the book was published this year.
The website for Allison’s “Thucydides’s Trap” project offers more detail on the case studies supposedly proving Thucydides’ ideas about the risks of conflict when a ‘rising’ power confronts a ‘ruling’ power
This can also be seen in the wider context of Allison’s project with his Harvard colleague, historian Niall Ferguson, to develop applied history and their manifesto for a Presidential Council of Historians
Thucydides tells us that the next World War will start in the South China Sea, claim numerous newspaper articles in the light of Allison’s idea
China dismisses the idea on a regular basis.
Dan Drezner wonders why they even bothered
Gideon Rachman evokes Allison’s thesis ($) in a wider discussion of US-China relations
Seth N. Jaffe offers a bit more emphasis on the Thucydides side
Allison’s book Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap? hits the shelves in 2017, with cover puffs from Henry Kissinger, Joe Biden, and retired general David Petraeus.
Some of the reviews so far: Arthur Waldron rejects it on the authority of Donald Kagan while Ian Buruma is equally critical but more measured, focusing mainly on Allison’s account of China. Other reviewers have been more positive but still largely dissenting from the pessimistic view that war is more likely than not (e.g. Max Hastings in The Times ($); a longer analysis from the Lowry Institute; the Economist focuses particularly on the role of nuclear weapons in making modern conflicts less likely to escalate) — but they all accept Allison’s take on Thucydides at face value.
*A couple of useful discussions from the War on the Rocks blog, with Seth N. Jaffe and Eric Robinson
Some podcasts and recorded discussions: Allison and Petraeus, a round table at the Kennedy School at Harvard, a talk from Allison at Google, Allison and Ferguson, and Allison and Kissinger.
*Best of the lot is the “Thucydides Cage Match” from Deep State Radio, with Allison coming up against Kori Schake, as there’s actually a bit of argument for a change.
Background 1: The International Relations Tradition
Allison’s idea hasn’t come out of nowhere; since the Second World War, Thucydides has been regularly evoked as an authority figure in International Relations theory, especially associated with realism and neorealism.
General surveys of the history of reception within International Relations in Lowell F. Gustafson, ed., Thucydides’ Theory of International Relations: A Lasting Possession and Christine Lee & Neville Morley, eds., A Handbook to the Reception of Thucydides, especially chapters by Keene, Johnson and Ruback, with copious bibliography.
Some of the best of the specialized studies: Laurie M. Johnson, Thucydides, Hobbes, and the Interpretation of Realism; Gregory Crane, Thucydides and the Ancient Simplicity; Richard Ned Lebow & Barry S. Strauss, eds., Hegemonic Rivalry: from Thucydides to the Nuclear Age; Peter J. Ahrensdorf, “Thucydides’ Realist Critique of Realism”; Richard Ned Lebow, “Thucydides the Constructivist”; Jonathon Monten, “Thucydides and Modern Realism.”
*David A. Welch argues for “Why International Relations theorists should stop reading Thucydides,” although he concludes that they’ll all carry on reading Thucydides regardless.
This is predominantly a US phenomenon, but Australia and New Zealand also buy into this tradition, with Australian PM Malcolm Turnbull’s well-known admiration for Thucydides and New Zealand diplomat Vangelis Vitalis’ analysis of global politics.
Background 2: the military tradition
Another reason why many people in the White House are familiar with Thucydides is that there are so many generals, former and serving, who will have encountered him as part of their higher-level training in the war colleges.
General introduction to teaching Thucydides within Professional Military Education from 2007, with Prof. Karl Walling from the US Naval War College (which pioneered it)
Academic history and analysis: A. Stradis, “Thucydides in the War College,” in C. Lee & N. Morley, eds., Handbook to the Reception of Thucydides.
A 2016 debate over how Thucydides should be taught in the war colleges
Reflections on the continuing relevance of Thucydides from serving and former officers at The Strategy Bridge blog here and here
Thucydides features on the reading list put together by National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster
Background 3: The Neocons
This isn’t the first time that Thucydides has been a favored text in the White House; he was “the favorite neoconservative text on foreign affairs,” according to Irving Kristol, and under George W. Bush various Thucydides fans seized the opportunity to promote his claims.
William Charles on why neoconservatives love Thucydides
Donald Kagan & Frederick W. Kagan, While America Sleeps: Self-Delusion, Military Weakness, and the Threat to Peace Today; Donald Kagan, Thucydides: the Reinvention of History, with Mary Beard’s NYRB review
Victor Davis Hanson, An Autumn of War: What America Learned from September 11 and the War on Terrorism and A War Like No Other: how the Athenians and Spartans fought the Peloponnesian War, savagely critiqued as an apology for the invasion of Iraq in The American Conservative
Jeanne Morefield, Empires Without Imperialism: Anglo-American decline and the politics of deflection, Chapter 2 on Kagan and the idealization of Athens.
John A. Bloxham, Thucydides and US Foreign Policy Debates after the Cold War, Chapter 3.
Some other Kagans, still pushing a similar line of argument in 2016
An Alternative View: Thucydides and Populism
Various people see parallels between Donald Trump, Cleon, and Athenian populism (with a mixture of Thucydides and Aristophanes).
Peter Jones on Donald Trump and Cleon for The Spectator; *Elizabeth Markovits on Trump, Cleon, and “telling it like it is” for the Washington Post; Sean Braswell for Ozy; Chris Mackie for The Conversation; James Romm for The New Yorker; Glen Bowersock for NYRB; Michael Weinman for Public Seminar…
And, finally, some of my thoughts on why this may not be entirely helpful.
Broader Context: Other Aspects of the Modern Reception of Thucydides
Recorded lecture: Neville Morley, “Thucydides in the Modern World”
Katherine Harloe & Neville Morley, eds., Thucydides in the Modern World: Reception, Reinterpretation and Influence from the Renaissance to Today.
Christine Lee & Neville Morley, eds., Handbook to the Reception of Thucydides.
And that Wonder Woman quote..?
Yes, Graham Allison and his publicity team are trying to use it to push Destined for War, and inevitably it’s nonsense.
Neville Morley is Professor of Classics & Ancient History at the University of Exeter, and an Einstein Visiting Fellow at the Freie Universität Berlin. He is the author of books on both ancient economic history and classical reception, including Antiquity and Modernity and Thucydides and the Idea of History, and blogs at thesphinxblog.com.
