Herodotus gets credit for being the first historian but Thucydides is only a little later and much more reliable he doesn't spin tall tales. His history reads like many histories in modern times. His voice is not alien to modern ears. The story of battles, wars, and politics doesn't sound weird. We can imagine headlines around his type of narrative in NYT. Not saying he is perfect but he looks a lot like a historian as we have come to know them. Anyway, the Peloponnesian war weakened the powers of Athens and Sparta, and the infighting of the Greek city-states made for easy pickings later by Philip of Macedon. This book has been historically revived because the rivalry between two major powers is a perennial problem so the history of great power clashes is always relevant. As a cold war kid, I can personally attest to the high drama of such narratives.