Thucydides

In the first few pages of book one of the History of the Peloponnesian War was struck by Thucydides construct of history as a linear progression based on material acquisition. In Thucydides construction of history, individuals who always carry weapons and live in a world of robbery progress into a people who do not carry weapons and live "more relaxed and more luxurious" life styles. The first people to under go this evolution were, of course, the Athenians.

It is interesting that his evidence for the existence of the this progression is present in "the fact that the people that I have mentioned [those who do not live with in Hellenes] still live in this way.(38)" In this quote Thucydides makes a clear distinction between the advanced Greeks and the backward others who still live in a world of robbery that has yet to advance in the linear path of history.

This understanding is similar to that of the Regan Administration which spoke about the United States as a "city on a hill" more historically advanced, less barbaric then the others. It is also similar to enlightenment thinkers treatment of the Orient.

In fact, this belief in linear progressions and representing the "other" as less advanced threads its way through modern western scholarship until the 1970s when "post-modernist" begin to deconstruct it.