Kurt Raaflaub

Kurt Arnold Raaflaub (* February 15, 1941 in Buea ) is a Swiss historian.

Kurt Raaflaub grew up in Basel and Cameroon, and is the older brother of the conductor Beat Raaflaub. Raaflaub studied history and classical philology at the Universities of Basel and Hamburg. In 1970 he received his doctorate in Basel with Christian Meier about the civil war between Caesar and Pompey. From 1972 to 1978 he was assistant professor at the Free University of Berlin. In 1979 there habilitation. Raaflaub taught from 1978 until his retirement in 2009 as professor of ancient history at Brown University and Director of the Center for Hellenic Studies in Washington, DC Raaflaub is a corresponding member of the German Archaeological Institute since 1995.

His research focuses on the Roman Republic, the history of archaic and classical Greece, the political and social environment of the Homeric poems, the Athenian democracy, war and peace in the ancient world.

Writings

Monographs

  • Beginnings of political thought in the ancient world. The Middle Eastern cultures and the Greeks. Munich 1993, ISBN 3-486-55993-1.
  • The discovery of freedom. For historical semantics and social history of a fundamental political concept of the Greeks. Munich 1985, ISBN 3-406-30552-0.
  • Dignitatis contentio. Studies on motivation and political tactics in the civil war between Caesar and Pompey. Munich 1974, ISBN 3-406-04790-4

Editorial Boards

  • With Mark Toher: Between Republic to Empire. Interpretations of Augustus and his Principate, Berkeley, 1990, ISBN 0-520-06676-6
  • With Ian Morris: Democracy 2500? Questions and Challenges, Dubuque, Iowa, 1998, ISBN 0-7872-4466- X.
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