Thucydides on War and National Character

"In this book, Robert D. Luginbill explores Thucydides' concept of national character and its relation to humankind's tendency toward war. He investigates Thucydides' theories on personal and national behavior in times of stress, with an eye for the lessons to be learned in modern times.

Luginbill also analyzes the psychological framework behind History of the Peloponnesian War, explicating the origins of the war within Thucydides' distinct historiographical system, the patterns of individual behavior that account for (and restrain) aggression, and the formation of larger patterns of collective behavior that Thucydides saw as the ultimate cause of war."--BOOK JACKET.