Donald Kagan

Donald Kagan was the Sterling Professor Emeritus of Classics and History at Yale University. He was the author of many books on ancient and modern history, including the four-volume History of the Peloponnesian War, a leading scholarly work on the subject.

Other books by Kagan include On the Origins of War and the Preservation of Peace, The Great Dialogue: A History of Greek Political Thought from Homer to Polybius, and Thucydides: The Reinvention of History.

A former dean of Yale College, Kagan received his Ph.D. in 1958 from The Ohio State University. He won numerous awards and fellowships, including four teaching awards at Cornell and Yale. In 2002 he was the recipient of the National Humanities Medal, and in 2005 was named the National Endowment for the Humanities Jefferson Lecturer.

Articles by this Author

Nations Rarely Go to War for Economic Reasons, February/March 1997 | Vol. 48, No. 1

Donald Kagan, a historian of the ancient world believes that, in every era, people have reacted to the demands of waging war in surprisingly similar ways, and that, to protect our national interests today, Americans must understand the choices that soldiers and statesmen made hundreds and even thousands of years ago.

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