Dr Roel Konijnendijk

Academic Background

I went to study History at Leiden University in the Netherlands in 2004. I was immediately captivated by the ancient world and decided to specialise in Ancient History. After a Research MA at Leiden and a year in Taiwan, I came to London to pursue a PhD in Greek warfare at UCL, which I completed in 2015. Since then, I have held I have held teaching and research roles at Birkbeck, the Institute of Historical Research, Warwick, Leiden, Oxford, and Edinburgh.

Research Interests

I am interested in the many forms of war in the Greek world and the way they are shaped by social, political and cultural forces. I study Classical Greek military thought and practice as well as the encounters between the Greek and Persian military systems. I have written about Greek tactics, Athenian democracy, Spartan traditions, Persian kingship, Herodotus, Max Weber, and the way modern scholarship has shaped our understanding of Greek warfare.

Research Keywords

Classical Greece, Achaemenid Persia, warfare, historiography, democracy, Athens, Sparta, history of scholarship

Teaching

I offer a wide range of papers in Ancient History (GH1, 2, 3; RH4; Aristophanes; Thucydides; Democracy; Alexander; Hellenistic Society). I also teach the CAAH Greek Core class on Aristocracy and Democracy, 550-450 BC.

Publications

Dr Roel Konijdendijk Full list of Publications January 2023

Selected Publications

Konijnendijk, R. (2023), Between Miltiades and Moltke: Early German Studies in Greek Military History (Leiden: Brill)

Konijnendijk, R. and Echeverría, F. (2023), ‘Max Weber, the rise of the polis, and the hoplite revolution theory,’ Journal of the History of Ideas 84.1, 103-125

Konijnendijk, R. (2021), ‘Playing dice for the polis: pitched battle in Greek military thought’, TAPA 151.1, 1-33

Konijnendijk, R. (2018), Classical Greek Tactics: A Cultural History (Leiden: Brill)

Konijnendijk, R. (2016), ‘Mardonios’ senseless Greeks’, Classical Quarterly 66.1, 1-12