“The Critic’s Notebook,” by the Editors

“The Critic’s Notebook,” by the Editors

Nonfiction: Thucydides: A Very Short Introduction, by Jennifer T. Roberts (Oxford University Press): In the introduction to his great history of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides reckons that the absence of to muthodes (legend, myth, romance) from his narrative may disappoint some of his readers. This will seem quaint, since an eschewal of the fantastic is precisely what modern readers expect from “history”; and though we nod smilingly at the au…