History

Civil Rights

Slavery By Another Name, Convict Labor in the Jim Crow Deep South

08/12/2022 Bruce Strom 0

In this blog we will reflect on the Pulitzer Prize winning book by Douglas Blackmon, Slavery by Another Name, with the subtitle, The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II. This book documents both on an individual level and historically how the convict labor system worked in the Deep South. These convict labor camps were often every bit as brutal as the Siberian gulag labor camps in Russia under Stalin, in both systems many of the prisoners died from overwork, neglect, abuse, and starvation. […]

Civil Rights

WEB Du Bois, Souls of Black Folk, Essays on Alexander Crummel, Black Episcopal Priest, and Sharecropping

08/10/2022 Bruce Strom 0

How does WEB Dubois start his essay on the life of Alexander Crummell? By how he confronted the temptations and doubts that faced all talented black men in a time when whites could not comprehend that a black man could actually be a true intellectual, that he could think independently of his white overlords. WEB starts his essay, “This is the history of a human heart, the tale of a black boy who” “struggled with life that he might know the world and know himself,” fulfilling the instructions written on the Temple of Delphi so many millennia ago. […]

History

Thirty Tyrants Ruling Athens After Spartan Victory in the Peloponnesian Wars

07/29/2022 Bruce Strom 0

After the end of the Peloponnesian Wars, the victorious Spartan commander Lysander insisted that, as part of the terms of peace, the Athenians set up an aristocracy under the rule of the Thirty Tyrants. Although the previous tyrants in the sixth century BC were benevolent tyrants, the Thirty were Tyrants of the worst kind, dominated by the vicious Critias, a tyranny that quickly descended into an orgy of bloodshed directed first against their enemies, and then against their fellow aristocrats so they could seize their property. This misrule preceded the reestablishment of the Radical Democracy of Athens, and the events of the Thirty Tyrants cast a long shadow over Athenian history and the Platonic dialogues. […]

Greek and Roman History

Spartan Lysander Shows Mercy on Athens, Ending the Peloponnesian Wars

07/22/2022 Bruce Strom 0

Lysander was appointed as the Spartan naval commander near the end of the war. He was both an effective military leader and an able diplomat, negotiating Persian assistance from Cyrus the Younger in building and funding the fleet of triremes that would check Alcibiades and the generals who succeeded him, eventually winning the Peloponnesian Wars. We will consult Plutarch’s Life of Lysander, and also Thucydides and Xenophon, since Thucydides’ history ends soon after the Oligarchic coup, where it is picked up by Xenophon. […]

Greek and Roman History

Comeback of Alcibiades in Peloponnesian War, according to Plutarch, Thucydides, and Xenophon

07/15/2022 Bruce Strom 0

Thucydides quotes the comic playwrights who say that regarding Alcibiades, the Athenians Love Him, Hate Him, and Can’t Do Without Him. During the war, he first advises the Athenians, then the Spartans, then the Persians, then he advises and leads the Athenians again, and everyone who takes his advice is successful in the war, but he manages to irritate so many Greeks and, after the war ends, is eventually slain by the Persians and Spartans. […]

Greek and Roman History

Athens’ Disastrous Defeat at Syracuse in Sicilian Expedition, Peloponnesian Wars

06/29/2022 Bruce Strom 3

We cannot improve on Will Durant’s summary of this ignoble defeat:
“The disaster broke the spirit of Athens. Nearly half the citizen body was enslaved or dead; half the women of the citizen class were widows, and their children were orphans.”

With modern scholarship, Professor Kenneth Harl estimates that only a quarter to a third of the male citizens of Athens were lost at Syracuse, which makes more sense, but is still a devastating blow. […]

Greek and Roman History

Aristophanes’ Comedy on the Peace of Nicias, Peloponnesian Wars

06/22/2022 Bruce Strom 0

Although many people in Athens and Sparta were opposed to the Peace of Nicias, and definitely most Spartan allies opposed the peace, many Athenians and Spartans were weary of war, so the peace did somewhat hold for six years. The play “Peace” by Aristophanes won second prize at the Dionysian Festival just a few days before the ratification of the Peace of Nicias, it celebrates the peace and a return to the idyllic life in the countryside. This play, the Peace, reflects the yearning of many Greeks for peace at last. […]

Greek and Roman History

From the Death of Pericles to the Peace of Nicias, Peloponnesian War, Thucydides and Plutarch

06/17/2022 Bruce Strom 0

After the death of Pericles, no popular leader arose that was able to dominate the Assembly like Pericles, which meant that it was impossible to follow a consistently stable wartime policy. Instead, Thucydides described a series of orators call demagogues. Pericles was the last Assembly orator who was also a general, he was elected to be a general for a dozen yearlong terms, in this war generals had to fight long campaigns and we unable to constantly address the Assembly, which led to the rise of the demagogue orators, who were often more interested in promoting polices that were popular with the people, and themselves, rather than promoting policies that would benefit the state. […]