War and Society in the Ancient and Medieval Worlds

Kurt A. Raaflaub is Professor of Classics and History at Brown University and Joint Director of the Center for Hellenic Studies in Washington, D.C. Nathan Rosenstein is Associate Professor of History at Ohio State University. Pierre Briant is Emeritus Professor of History of the Achaemenid World and Alexander’s Empire at the Collège de France. William Wayne Farris is Professor of History, University of Tennessee, Knoxville. John Haldon is Professor of Byzantine History and Hellenic Studies at Princeton University. Robin D. S. Yates is Assistant Professor of Chinese History, Harvard University.

Thucydides and his contemporaries knew war from bitter experience. Peace to them was an illusion, war the true constant… War and Society in the Ancient and Medieval Worlds shows how and why Thucydides’s vision prevailed throughout pre-industrial times in the Mediterranean and elsewhere. Because of the omnipresence of war or its specter within ancient Greek—and Roman—culture, editors Kurt Raaflaub and Nathan Rosenstein recognize the real need to explore in theoretical terms how war (including military technology and organization) affected ancient society (including economic and political systems) and vice versa.