The implications of Thucydides' hostility to full democracy have long been avoided by scholars. In this provocative study the author confronts and examines this aspect of Thucydides' thought in detail. A. Geoffrey Woodhead also discusses his controversial interpretation of Thucydides' view of the nature of power: that equally among states and individuals, the impulse toward power follows its own laws, which are not immoral but amoral, and which should be viewed for themselves without ethical or emotional confusion.