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"History, what makes it worth telling? How to tell it & to whom?"
The above questions on the syllabus, provoked one
member of the Group appointed to lead discussion to attack the question
posed & deliver an impassioned plea for the value of history:
Tomasz argued that we need history in order
to remember & to avoid repeating mistakes.
I [JVS] replied in surprise that I
hadn't meant to cast doubt on the value of history but only to direct attention
to how Thucydides himself answers the question. It obviously was important
for him.
[In class we spent a bit of time chanting together outloud
the name, "thoo SIH de dees," to help make it more familiar.]
DISCUSSION TOPICS TOUCHED
1)Why write history?
2) What makes a particuluar history worth reading?
1) Why write history [p 48, sec 22, paragraph 1]:
"It will be enough for me, however, if these words of mine
are judged useful by those who want to understand clearly the events which
happened in the past and which (human nature being what it is)
will, at some time or other and in much the same ways, be repeatged
in the future. My work is not a piece of writing designed to meet the taste
of an immediate public, but was done to last for ever."
DISCUSSED: "human nature being what it is": what do we think
it is? do we agree with Th's view that it is always everywhere the same?
His claim, that it is "the same" provokes us to compare what we see
today with what he describes from his time: Same? Different? If different,
in what ways?
Ann said that some people always try to gain advantage over
others & do it, too. That hasn't changed.
[p. 35] "great war...very height of powers...greatest
disturbance...affecting...whole of mankind" as opposed to "distant past...not
great periods either in warfare or in anything else"; cf. (compare) what
Thucydides says about the poverty of the Greek expedition against Troy
(pp. 39-42): note especially "a small place...shortage of money. Lack of
supplies...lack of money was the reason why previous expeditions were not
really considerable."
QUERY: Who names wars? Why "Peloponnesian War?" Cf. (compare)
"Persian War" & "Trojan War."
In class we explained that "Peloponnesian"
refers (by metonymy) to the principal city of the part of Greece known
as the Peloponnese,
of which the princpal city was Sparta.
So So clearly it was not a Spartan who called this the "war with the Peloponnesians
(i.e. Sparta her allies). In fact Thucydides identifies himself as an Athenian,
so the title "Peloponnesian War" implies "War fought by the Athenians &
their Allies with Sparta & her allies."
Questions:
Corinth
was an ally of Sparta: where was it located?
"Persian Wars" (490, 480):
named by whom? fought with whom?
"Trojan War" (ca 1200):
named by whom? fought with whom?
"Vietnam War": so called
by whom? what do they call it in Viet Nam?
2) What makes a particuluar history worth reading?
a) Important subject: Thucydides on greatness
of this war (pp. 35, 40-42, cited above).
b) Method of research & telling: superior
to previous writers & to mythology (pp. 46, 47). Homer in particular
played down (inferior subject, pp. 40-42) & inferior regard for facts
(p. 47, cf. p. 148).
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Designed
in Century fonts by JBVS, coached by LB;
started 96/01/03, revised 02/02/22.
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