Wars That Made the Western World: The Persian Wars, the Peloponnesian War, and the Punic Wars

This course addresses three wars fought in antiquity, each of which had-even two thousand years and more later-a decisive effect in shaping our communal sense of who we are, not only in Europe, but throughout the European cultural diaspora, in the Americas, in Oceania, and to some degree, at least, in Asia and Africa as well-wherever, in short, Western values hold. The three wars to be investigated here are (1) the Persian Wars, between a coalition of Greek city-states or "poleis," most not...