Université de Strasbourg

David Pritchard

Biography

University of Queensland (UQ), Australia & USIAS Fellow at the Center for Analysis of Religious Rhetorics of Antiquity (CARRA) at the University of Strasbourg

David Pritchard, USIAS Fellow 2017

David Pritchard is Senior Lecturer in Greek History at the University of Queensland in Australia. He has won ten research fellowships in Australia, Denmark, France, the United Kingdom and the United States of America. In 2015 he was Research Fellow at Durham University’s Institute of Advanced Study, in 2014 he was Visiting Scholar in Greek History at Brown University and in 2013 was the Charles Gordon Mackay Lecturer in Greek at the University of Edinburgh.

David Pritchard has authored Sport, Democracy and War in Classical Athens (Cambridge University Press: 2013) and Public Spending and Democracy in Classical Athens (University of Texas Press: 2015), edited War, Democracy and Culture in Classical Athens (Cambridge University Press: 2010), and co-edited Sport and Festival in the Ancient Greek World (Classical Press of Wales: 2003). He has recently finished Athenian Democracy at War for Cambridge University Press. In addition to his books he has published 50 book-chapters and peer-reviewed articles. David Pritchard regularly speaks on radio and writes for newspapers. His opinion pieces have appeared in The Age, The Australian, The Conversation (France), The Courier-Mail, Die Süddeutsche Zeitung, The Sydney Morning Herald, Kathimerini, The Herald Sun, The Canberra Times, The Advertiser, Neos Kosmos and Online Opinion.

In 2018, David published the first English translation of the article on "la belle mort" by the eminent French classic historian Nicole Loraux, “Mourir devant Troie, tomber pour Athènes: De la gloire du héros à l’idée de la cité” (Loraux 1982), under the title of "The "Beautiful Death" from Homer to Democratic Athens" (Pritchard 2018). 

Project - Democracy and War in Ancient Athens

December 2017 - September 2018

Athens, as leading cultural innovator of its age, developed democracy to a higher level than any other society before the modern period. Athens is revered for such achievements. Less known is its extraordinary military record whereby it transformed war and became one of the ancient world’s greatest military powers. There is a strong case that it was its democratic government that brought about this military success. By explaining democracy’s impact on war, this project transforms our understanding of one of the world’s most important states. Political Science has long used ancient Greece as a source of fresh ideas. This project will provide political scientists with new and important lines of enquiry into the wars of today’s democracies.

Links

France 2030