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While he appreciated Herodotus, our professor insisted that Thucydides was the first to focus exclusively on capturing history “as it really happened.”1 His account combines a journalist’s eye for detail, a researcher’s search for truth among competing accounts, and a historian’s ability to identify the root causes behind complex events. Thucydides was also, as Professor Labban taught us, the pioneer of what we now call realpolitik, or realism in international relations.
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Graham Allison (Destined For War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides's Trap?)