Contact: Maridith Geuder
STARKVILLE, Miss.--A prominent military historian and author of six books on ancient wars will speak March 24 at Mississippi State.
The public program led by Barry Strauss begins at 4:30 p.m. in the McCool Hall atrium. The event is the latest in the 2008-09 Distinguished Lecture Series sponsored by the university's Institute for the Humanities, a part of the College of Arts and Sciences.
"The Spartacus War" (Simon and Schuster, 2009), will be the basis for his presentation titled "Spartacus: The First Insurgent?"
A professor of history and classics at Cornell University, Strauss is founder and director of the Program on Freedom and Free Societies. Fluent in seven foreign languages, he has traveled widely to classical sites in Italy, Turkey, Croatia, Cyprus, and Jordan.
Among his earlier works are "The Battle of Salamis," named one of the best books of 2004 by the Washington Post, and "The Trojan War: A New History," a main selection of the History Book Club.
In addition to writing numerous scholarly articles, book chapters and reviews, Strauss is series editor of the Princeton History of the Ancient World. He has been featured in, among others, the Los Angeles Times and Washington Post, as well as on the Arts & Entertainment, Discovery and History television cable channels.
Over his career, Strauss has received a string of honors, including the Heinrich Schliemann Fellowship at the American School of Classical Studies in Greece, National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship for University Teachers and Cornell University's Clark Award for Excellence in Teaching.