As a book for general readers, The Plague of War contains many useful enhancements to Roberts's standard narrative of the Peloponnesian War ... Roberts includes plenty of engaging vignettes about some of this period's most interesting characters and scandals...
Matthew Sears, Brill
A lucid one-volume summary of the long Hellenic catastrophe that began in 431 BC ... The ... Read morevirtues of Roberts' account are brevity and freshness
Dominic Green, Minerva
Do we really need another history of the Peloponnesian War? That was the question in my mind when I opened this book. When I finished it, I thought, yes, we seem to. Military historians often neglect developments in the arts, for instance, but Roberts weaves in Greek culture, showing how works by dramatists and philosophers reflected events in the war... She portrays the death of Socrates 12 years later as one more evil consequence of the war, with the great philosopher scapegoated 'for the ills of a city that had suffered war, economic collapse, demographic devastation and civil strife.'
Thomas E. Ricks, New York Times Book Review
A lively account.
Barbara Graziosi, Times Higher Education
[Roberts brings] clarity to events underpinning an important and complex period of history.
Peter Jones, Literary Review
Roberts presents the reader with a clear, straightforward and chronological narrative of events from the background to and origins of the war through to its grim conclusion and inconclusive war-torn aftermath... this is a good read and a good overview of the events that shaped the Classical Age. The events it describes will long continue to invite debate.
Mathew Trundle, H Soz Kult
A welcome contrast from traditional studies of the war ... Impressive
Journal of Hellenic Studies
Show Less