Winner of the 2019 Stratfor Book Prize for Geopolitical Analysis

A companion volume to The Spartan Regime and The Grand Strategy of Classical Sparta that explores the collapse of the Spartan‑Athenian alliance

Through the Persian Wars, Sparta and Athens worked well in tandem to defeat what was, in terms of relative resources and force, the best empire in history. For the 10 years . 5 that adopted, they continued their cooperation until a rift opened and an intense, tactical rivalry about Sparta’s First Attic Battle: The Grand Strategy of Traditional Sparta, 478-446 BC began. In a continuation of his series on ancient Sparta, noted historian Paul Rahe examines the grounds because of their alliance, the reason why for its eventual collapse, as well as the first stage within an enduring discord that could wreak havoc on Greece for six years. Throughout, Rahe argues which the alliance between Sparta and Athens and their eventual rivalry were extensions of their local policy and that the grand strategy each articulated in the wake of the Persian Wars as well as the conflict that arose in due course grew from the opposed material interests and moral imperatives natural in their different regimes.