Thucydides' Trap: A Modern Reception of an Athenian Classic

Abstract

Reception Studies have proven to be a steadily growing field since the last decades of the 20th century. This paper aims to analyze a reinterpretation of the classical text by Thucydides in the midst of the 21st century, undertaken by Harvard professor Graham Allison in his book Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides's Trap? [2017](2020). The use of the past, even from a historiographical perspective, is also a form of reception. Allison, a former director of the American CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) and a student of Greek language and literature, brings his own perspective to bear on Thucydides's work. How, then, does Graham Allison's thinking position itself in his use of Thucydides's work? What kind of reception of the classical text does he undertake in his work? These are the questions addressed in this article