Is Thucydides a Realist

The importance of human condition and international relations has been controversial for centuries. Classical realism is related to human's inherent aggressiveness and selfishness, I believe these qualities are to ensure that war and conflict are an inevitable aspect of human society. Or, neo-realism emphasizes the institutional structure of international politics. R. J. McShea discusses the importance of human tradition in international relations research.

In order to understand international relationship realism, we should review its roots. The classic realists, Thucydides, Machiavelli and Hobbes, summarized the first point of realism. The assumption of basic realism can be found in the history of Peloponnesus war at Thucydides. He analyzed the city state of ancient Greece and discovered inequality in state power. Thucydides made four basic assumptions about realism, including the nation as the main role of war and politics; the country is where there is one actor.

As a writer of the Peloponnesus War, Zedides was considered the founder of the political philosophy of the realist, but Nedlebovi believed that Turgide was a realistic work. Misunderstanding of more complicated political information Among them, philosophers such as Machiavelli, Hobbes, Rousseau are considered to contribute to the philosophy of realism. However, although their work may support realism, they can not classify themselves as realists in this sense. Political realism, like society, believes that politics is dominated by objective laws of humanity. In order to improve society, we must first understand the law of social life. The operation of these laws is not affected by our preferences and people only challenge the risk of failure.

However, Thucydides does not think that he is a realist who is often considered cold and reasonable. In particular, in recent years, some international political observers rejected the relationship between Thucydides and modern realism, arguing that the history of Thucydides is properly understood, impairing possible thinking about the principles of power politics Tragic cost of. The inconvenience of such a view is that Thucydides praised Belize, the main supporter of the power of the Empire of Athens on the eve of the war with Sparta. Foster's book will solve this problem. Because she claims persuasive arguments by applying language training and narrative methods to the first two books of Thucydides' history. Contrary to what the family accepts, Thucydides does not agree with Pericles. The greatness and power of Athens