Donald Kagan is Sterling Professor of History and Classics at Yale University. and is an internationally recognised authority on ancient Greek history and culture, as well as a scholar of diplomatic history. He is the author of a four-volume history of the Peloponnesian War that is considered the landmark academic work in the field as well as the highly acclaimed Pericles of Athens and the Birth of Democracy and On the Origins of War and the Preservation of Peace. His writing has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Commentary, The Public Interest and the New York Times Book Review.