LEADING GREEK HISTORIAN AND YALE UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR DONALD KAGAN TO SPEAK AT BARD COLLEGE ON TUESDAY, APRIL 13.

ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, N.Y.-Donald Kagan, the Hillhouse Professor of History and Classics at Yale University, will speak at Bard College on Tuesday, April 13 at 5:00 p.m., in Olin 102. The lecture, presented by the Classical Studies Program at Bard, is free and open to the public.

Donald Kagan is "one of the leading Greek historians in the United States today," notes Eric Orlin, assistant professor of classical studies at Bard College, continuing, "His range of publications is enormous, including a four- volume discussion of the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta that is considered the academic standard on that subject."

Donald Kagan's talk at Bard is titled "Pericles as Tragic Hero." Kagan, who has specialized in the history of Periclean Athens, is the author of Pericles of Athens and the Birth of Democracy. "An engaging and informative book which brings to life both Pericles and classical Athens itself," writes Roger Kimball in Commentary. "It is part of Kagan's accomplishment . . . to have communicated both the glory and arduousness of democracy. As Pericles put it in his famous funeral oration, "Happiness requires freedom and freedom requires courage."

Donald Kagan, former dean and interim athletic director at Yale College, has taught at Yale for thirty years. Born in Lithuania, he immigrated to Brooklyn with his family prior to World War II. He received his undergraduate degree from Brooklyn College, a master's degree from Brown University, and a doctorate from Ohio State University.

Kagan's publications include Western Heritage, which he edited, one of the most widely used texts on western civilization; the four-volume study of the Peloponnesian War, The Outbreak of the Peloponnesian War, The Archidamian War, The Peace of Nicias and the Sicilian Expedition, and The Fall of the Athenian Empire; and his most recent publication, On the Origins of War and the Preservation Peace, an examination of ancient and modern warfare that compares the origins of the Peloponesian War and World War I, and the Second Punic War and World War II. Explaining the theme of his book at a lecture at the University of Tulsa Kagan said, "We must understand that this is a tough world. We must be prepared to pay the price for peace. Peace does not preserve itself," he continued. "If there is peace, it is because someone is making it."

For further information about the lecture, call 914-758-7545.

This event was last updated on 03-02-2001

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