Myke Cole, author of The Bronze Lie: Shattering the Myth of Spartan Warrior Supremacy, joins the show to discuss what most people get wrong about Sparta, arguing that Spartan warriors were neither more deadly, nor more successful in war, than other Greeks of their day.▪️Times • 01:09 Introduction • 05:13 “Not especially tough” • 09:17 Getting it right, not being right • 10:48 What is the “Bronze Lie”? • 16:57 Captured by politics • 23:23 Who were the Spartans? • 30:11 Spartan slavery • 34:09 The Greco-Persian Wars • 37:00 Thermopylae • 41:32 Sparta and soft power • 45:30 “Making the time”
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This podcast seeks to learn what war teaches. There has been a steady decline in the study of military history and its associated theoretical discipline, strategy.This podcast seeks to fill that gap through in-depth interviews on military and diplomatic history. Our guests have included former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, the Cold War historian John Lewis Gaddis, and former China Select Committee chairman Mike Gallagher. We discuss the battlefield commanders, diplomats, strategists, policymakers, and statesmen who have had to make wartime decisions in the ancient and modern eras. The subject of an episode may be an historical battle, campaign, o...