Re: The concept of a 'Thucydides trap' is misguided

About Thucydides and IR, you bet!

He belongs in many modern categories, including "narrative explanation" and
-- not all agree -- "characterization."  Which means, to be treated as
literature, with all the implications (ambiguity!).  I'm awaiting referee
reports on an essay in which I invoke Henry James:a step that may have
doomed it.

When I participated in a fine "Grand Strategy" seminar at Temple, I
realized that Thucydides was the only *narrative* text in the class. That's
true with many similar syllabi elsewhere.  It takes some work to get people
to recognize how much that affects understanding and interpretation.

Best,

Dan

On Wed, Oct 16, 2019 at 12:41 PM Owen Cramer <[email protected]>
wrote:

> Thanks, Mark and Dan -- I hadn't noticed this piece. Now I think I'll look
> at something Zaretsky wrote out of his own research, his 1995 Nîmes at War.
> I spent part of a day in Nîmes with a class I was teaching, back in the
> 1980s, mainly at the Arena, and enjoyed that -- I had to restrain that
> class from trying to do oral history projects along the lines of "What did
> you do in the War" but I'd be interested to think about a professional's
> fine-grained study of what people did to get through the Vichy years.
> I do think that Thucydides belongs in International Relations and
> Political Theory, though! Hobbes, after all, started his publishing career
> there.
> Owen Cramer
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Classical Greek and Latin Discussion Group <[email protected]>
> On Behalf Of DANIEL P. Tompkins
> Sent: Wednesday, October 16, 2019 10:14 AM
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: Re: The concept of a 'Thucydides trap' is misguided
>
> This email originated outside Colorado College. Do not click links or
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>
> It is common sense, and he avoids the errors too many are making these
> days (but why pick on Harvard yet again...).  As a tweeter named
> ThucydidesBot has said, nothing very new here, but the column is worthwhile
> and informative for many readers.
>
> Dan
>
> On Wed, Oct 16, 2019 at 12:06 PM Mark Davidson <[email protected]>
> wrote:
>
> > Some common sense about Thucydides for once, in an article by Robert
> > Zaretsky in the NYT:
> >
> > "Is it possible that the real trap, though, is the still widely
> > unquestioned assumption that Thucydides was a political realist? That
> > if he does offer lessons, they are not found in the study of
> > international relations but in the study of human nature? That his
> > brand of realism has little to do with the work of modern political
> > theorists and much to do with the work of ancient tragedians?"
> >
> > Full article:
> >
> > https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.
> > nytimes.com%2F2019%2F10%2F16%2Fopinion%2Ftrump-history-lessons.html&am
> > p;data=02%7C01%7COCramer%40COLORADOCOLLEGE.EDU%7C80a9157cd22344df58fc0
> > 8d7525402db%7Ccfc7b13c12964387b3085de08fd13c99%7C1%7C0%7C6370683930834
> > 44009&amp;sdata=eaxo8hPGwy1%2B4cxg7HIq6nIvPAkv8N5Lrpeb2L20ji0%3D&amp;r
> > eserved=0
> >
> > Mark D
> >
>