Translation and the Truth of History: Thucydides between Valla and Hobbes

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José María Pérez Fernández (Professor of English Literature, Professor of English Literature, University of Granada)

Translation and the Truth of History

Name: Translation and the Truth of History
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ISBN: 9780197902202

Thucydides between Valla and Hobbes

José María Pérez Fernández (Professor of English Literature, Professor of English Literature, University of Granada)

$44.95

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English

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
18 June 2026

Literary studies: classical, early & medieval; History; European history; Medieval history

Series: Oxford Textual Perspectives

This book tells the material and intellectual history of several translations of Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War, from Lorenzo Valla's first Latin rendering in 1452, to the publication of Thomas Hobbes' English version in 1629. As Valla's manuscript passed through the hands of several editors and publishers who rendered it into print, the History of the Peloponnesian War also underwent a series of significant adaptations and changes, most telling in the vernacular versions in French (Claude de Seyssel, 1527), Italian (Francesco Strozzi, 1545), English (Thomas Nicholls, 1550), and Spanish (Diego Gracián, 1564) that eventually emerged. These translations were often motivated by various political or expedient uses, which the format of the printed manuscripts reveals. The book concludes with an in-depth look at the debut in print of one the most relevant political philosophers of modernity, Thomas Hobbes' Eight Bookes of the Peloponnesian Warre. Readers will come away understanding the profound extent to which the material history of a text conditions its reception and status, and our very sense of history itself.

By: José María Pérez Fernández (Professor of English Literature Professor of English Literature University of Granada)
Imprint: OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 203mm, Width: 136mm, Spine: 16mm
Weight: 330g
ISBN: 9780197902202
ISBN 10: 0197902200
Series: Oxford Textual Perspectives
Pages: 288
Publication Date: 18 June 2026
Audience: College/higher education , Further / Higher Education
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Acknowledgements 1: From Papyrus to Parchment and Paper, from Alexandria to Constantinople and Europe. 2: Valla's Thucydides and its Transit through Print. 3: Vernacular Translations: History as Counsel and Pattern for Political Communication. 4: Hobbes' Thucydides: Geometry and the Truth of History Conclusions Bibliography Index

José María Pérez Fernández is Professor of English Literature and Cultural Translation at the University of Granada in Spain. His research in comparative literature centers largely on early modern translation and cultural studies. He is the author of numerous articles which have appeared in books and such journals as Renaissance Quarterly, Translation and Literature, and Sendebar.