An Odyssey in Time of War: Gaza,Donbas and the Ghost of Thucydides - Softcover

Ian R. Mitchell

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1836719981 ISBN 13: 9781836719984

Publisher: Pegasus Publishers, 2026

Synopsis

From the ruins of classical Greece to the fault lines of the modern world, this book is a journey through landscapes shaped as much by ideas as by stone. Moving from Athens and the Peloponnese to Magna Graecia and beyond, it weaves travel writing with history, archaeology, and political reflection. Ancient voices—Thucydides, Herodotus, Aristarchus—are set against contemporary conflicts, revealing unsettling continuities between past and present. Democracy and empire, power and hypocrisy, physis and nomos recur as enduring tensions. Vivid descriptions of temples, mountains, and forgotten sites are paired with clear-eyed analysis of war, imperial ambition, and historical causation. Written with wit, skepticism, and moral urgency, this is not nostalgic classicism but engaged history: a reminder that the “real causes” of events often lie beneath their surface explanations, and that wisdom, too often, arrives only after the event.

About this title

About the Author

Ian R Mitchell is a long-established author with almost twenty published books on the subjects of mountaineering, travel and history. Some of these have received awards, such as A View from the Ridge, which won the prestigious Boardman Tasker Prize for Mountaineering Literature. Ian has travelled widely in Africa, Europe and North America, and has given talks and presentations at many conferences and festivals on both sides of the Atlantic. As a former lecturer in history, Ian’s academic training gives added weight to his travel writings.

Edition details

• Publisher: Pegasus Publishers
• Publication date: 2026
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1836719981
• ISBN 13: 9781836719984
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 157