Greek Historiography History As a Term Paper

The History is incomplete as far as the war is concerned because it ends abruptly with the narrative of the events of 411 BC.

Thucydides discusses his historical method and related issues in the early section, known as the "Archaeology" section. The fact that he had a journalistic tendency is indicated by the fact that he started to write about the war as soon as it started claiming that he expected it would turn out to be a great war and so one that would deserve to be recorded. He made the predictions he made beacsue he saw both sides as at their peak in every sort of preparation for war, and he also saw the rest of the Greek world taking one side or the other in the battle. Thucydides realizes that it is important to know why these events came to pass and so to look to the era before the war, perhaps some distance back in time. Doing so is more difficult because he was not present for those earlier events, but he states that he has looked into the evidence to the degree possible and is confident that he knows what was important and what was not.

The Greeks took the idea of history from mythology to historical analysis and journalistic observation.Others would follow in their footsteps.

Bibliography

Breisach, Ernst. Historiography: Ancient, Medieval, and Modern. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994.

Finley, Moses. "Introduction." In Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War. New York: Penguin, 1972.

Finley, M.I. The Ancient Greeks. London: Penguin Books, 1977.

Fornara, Charles W. Herodotus: An Interpretative Essay. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971.

Woodruff, Paul. Thucydides: On Justice, Power, and Human Nature. Indianapolis, Indiana: Hackett, 1993.

Ernst Breisach, Historiography: Ancient, Medieval, and Modern (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994), 9.

M.I. Finley, the Ancient Greeks (London: Penguin Books, 1977), 111.

Oswald Spengler, the Decline of the West: Volume One. New York: Alfred a. Knopf, 1989.

Charles W. Fornara, Herodotus: An Interpretative Essay (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971), 59.

Moses Finley, "Introduction," in Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War (New York:….....