For years I wondered why people still read Thucydides, but I have to say, there is something here. This work is still relevant.

I've been reading Thucydides History of the Peloponnesian War and although it's pretty dense, it's also great. The book is the first ancient historical work I've read that's been what I'd call a real work of history. The other ancients who I've read--Tacitus, Plutarch, Herodotus, Suetonius--seem concerned either with reciting events or with digging deep…