David StuttardReseñas
Autor de Nemesis: Alcibiades and the Fall of Athens
Reseñas
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Stuttard does an excellent job of describing the Peloponnesian War, Athens, the wider Mediterranean world, and Persia along with the role Alcibiades plays in the war itself. Starting with the Alcmaeonids (Alcibiades' ancestors) and tracing how Athens flourished as an empire builder to the birth of Alcibiades himself, Stuttard does an excellent job of world building that allows the reader to grasp what Athens was really like, its politics, religion, and how the Peloponnesian War came to be. Alcibiades story is woven throughout so that this is both history and biography.
Alcibiades was quite the character. Starting at a young age he started to make a name for himself. He could also act quite scandalous which would come back to haunt him later. He was a student of Socrates which would affect both Alcibiades and Socrates (think hemlock). Alcibiades became a great orator, politician, and general. And very, very rich. He also manages to make and alienate friends, allies and former allies, and a good portion of Athens population. He is accused of sacrilege but manages to escape arrest (Alcibiades was quite the charmer and could talk himself out of quite a bit of trouble) and switches sides to the Spartans, Athens' mortal enemy. Remember how Alcibiades was a charmer? Well, he charmed the Spartan queen that he ended up her lover and fathered her son. Of course, the Spartan king doesn't take to kindly to Alcibiades fathering a son on his wife (the adultery wasn't so much an issue but the issue of lineage and heredity were). So Alcibiades scarpers off to Persia, another mortal enemy of Athens. Till he wears out his welcome there and doesn't follow through on his promise to convince the Persians to support Athens instead of Sparta. He ends up back in Athens after several major military victories. But then Sparta kicks Athens butt and Alcibiades takes off for Thrace. But that doesn't go so well so he again runs off to the Persians again where he eventually ends up dead.
Stuttard does an excellent job of weaving history, world building, religion, politics, Persian court politics and world, Sparta and its world, and the story of Alcibiades all into an excellent story. The reader gets enough details, dates and other relevant information without being overwhelmed. It doesn't read like a dry history book but a well developed story.
My only quibble and the reason this isn't 5 stars was an editing issue. There were times when a name was spelled one way in one sentence and then spelled another way in the next sentence and spelled three or four different ways on one page. Somebody should have caught these especially since it was not a common name. The other was the slight overuse of exclamation marks at the ends of sentences. You can emphasize a point without an exclamation mark. Like I said, that was an editing issue and didn't really detract.