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What Paul Rahe Has Been Up To
In the past few months our own beloved @paulrahe, professor of history at Hillsdale, has been posting more lightly than usual here at Ricochet — and today he dropped me a line explaining why: He’s been finishing a major book: The Spartan Regime: Its Character, Origins, and Grand Strategy.
Googling around on early reviews, I have learned what Paul himself is of course too modest to say: This is a very, very important book, a major advance in our understanding of one of the most compelling yet enigmatic peoples of the ancient world.
Amazon will begin shipping the book on Friday, but you can pre-order your copy this very day.
Needless to say, we’ll have Paul on a podcast soon. And you know why, don’t you? Because we here at Ricochet are classy, that’s why.
P.S. Paul tells me that at just four chapters this new book is only “bite-sized.” Something tells me that Paul’s idea of “bite-sized” is different from that of the ordinary reader, but still. Shall we all do our best to read The Spartan Regime over a weekend?
Published in Literature
Pre-ordered just now. Thank you for the recommendation; Rahe’s work is amazing.
I’m looking forward to reading The Spartan Regime.
My previous experience with Dr. Rahe’s work is Against Throne and Altar: Machiavelli and Political Theory Under the English Republic. I recommend it highly, but as mentioned in the OP, Rahe’s work can be characterized as “dense” reading.
He and VDH were top notch on the Sparta and Athens series from Hillsdale.
I read the precuser book to this, The Grand Strategy of Classical Sparta: The Persian Challenge, and it was excellent. Very readable but also thorough in the analysis.
I look forward to the release of the Kindle edition of the new book.
Will there be an audible book? When? Does this work lend itself to that medium?
And…purchase.
I listened to his last book on audio. I hope this one will be there, too.
Listen to the podcast folks – it’s going to be yuge.
When are we going to have Dr. Rahe and Dr. Hanson together for a classical gab fest of biblical proportions?
I would love to read it, but I don’t buy paper books anymore. Please let us know when the Kindle edition (or any other eBook format) is available and I will buy it that day.
When your response to a threat by Phillip II to destroy you and all you hold dear if he invades your territory is the single word “If,” you’d be enigmatic too.
I’m looking forward to the book and the podcast.
I too have become more fascinated with Sparta (Greece, not Tennessee).
The militarization of American foreign policy and the permeation of our defense into some many aspects of our lives is the reason…..