Murray Dahm is a freelance historian and the author of Breaking the Spartans: Epaminondas, Pelopidas, and the Brief Glory of Thebes. He has written more than 50 articles for magazines such as Ancient Warfare, Medieval Warfare, and Ancient History. Murray lives in New South Wales, Australia.
Dahm's command of the source material is comprehensive and nuanced. He performs that most critical function in both history and law-enforcement/ intelligence work - source analysis. He is skeptical and careful in his appre- ciation of the sources, and reveals a deep understanding of the agendas and personal stories of the writers in question, applying this to his narrative and being sure to alert the reader to those inevitable points (most inevitable in ancient history) where the only data we have must be taken with a rather large grain of salt. -- Myke Cole * International Journal of Military History and Historiography *