[Stoat]

Good list. However, I must confess that I got as far as one-third through Thucydides. I got tired of reading about this little town and that little town invading each other or forming temporary alliances to attack another little town, all of them egged on by long-winded generals and war chiefs.

Was it Kagan's book that you found to be so dreary?  It seems from the review that the primary benefit of Kagan's approach and treatment of the subject is that it "reduces to a highly readable scope his more formidable four-volume series, summarizing Thucydides' tale as readable history. " and "Thomas Hobbes said of Thucydides that the "narrative subtley instructeth the reader." Kagan's instruction is subtle and enjoyable"

It sounds as though Kagan wrote with you (and many others) in mind   :-)

My apologies to the classicists here at FR, especially the Hellenists.

Hopefully all will agree that, like any other subject, it's possible to present the Classics poorly and they won't fault you for being the unfortunate recipient of a poor text.  It sounds as though Kagan has breathed new life into the work and hopefully you might give it another chance one day   :-)

[kiriath_jearim]

"Was it Kagan's book that you found to be so dreary? "

***
It was the translation found in the 54-volume "Great Books Of The Western World" series published in 1952 by Encyclopedia Britannica/University of Chicago. You probably know the series. Perhaps it was the small print of the volume. But I forgot the translator's name.

I'll give it a try again later. But I did read through all of Herodotus this year, and through Plutarch as well--but, alas, in English. I only have enough Greek to get through the first sentence of Plato's "Apologia".