Sparta, the Warrior City State, by Richard J. Samuelson || Lords of War Vol. 1 || Audiobook by LA CASE Books.

There are few names able to evoke such contrasting feelings as that of Sparta. In the modern man’s mind Sparta is quite often considered the rival and for many aspects the antagonist of Athens, the cradle of western civilization. This point of view is certainly true on one end but we can’t limit ourselves to this superficial and too rush of an interpretation.

Without a doubt Sparta has been a symbol of military prowess since its beginning but, as we shall see, it mostly has been a sophisticated and ambitious experiment in social engineering, at the same level as the ones we are used to study in the pages of recent history.

Centuries before Pol Pot’s Cambodia or the Soviet Union, Sparta had been, as a matter of fact, a living testimony of the same ambitious ideas which are the ground of any social utopia worthy of that name. With only one difference: Sparta lived for war and did not care about anything else.

Richard J. Samuelson

Historian and popularizer, Samuelson specializes in military history. He is in charge of the series “Lords of War”, published by LA CASE Books starting from 2010.

The series, through a multimedia narration that moves between ebooks and audiobooks, presents a series of biographies and historical monographs signed by various authors, including Axel Silverstone, Kay Larsson, Antonella Di Martino and Jeremy Feldman.

Among his most successful titles are the biographies of Genghis Khan and Attila, the tale of the Vietnam War and the biography of Josef Mengele.