Do you ever study or teach ancient war or peace? If so, read on!
The study of ancient history, archaeology, literature and art involves regular encounters with armed conflict. At present, the teaching of ancient war and peace tends to be dominated by high-level politics and an emphasis on weapons, equipment, tactics and strategy, centring around (usually male) soldiers and their (usually male) leaders. Too little attention is paid to the second-order impacts of conflict (famine, disease, sexual violence, displacement, etc), to the diversity of people impacted by it, and to the everyday experiences of ordinary individuals. Compounding this, there is even less coverage of ancient concepts of peace, ancient approaches to conflict prevention, and ancient experiences of peacebuilding and post-conflict recovery.
The need for fresh approaches to teaching ancient war and peace reaches goes well beyond the classroom. Research into the militarization of childhood underlines the role that education can play in socializing young people into visualizing armed violence as normal, natural, impressive, even desirable. Arguably, the teaching of ancient warfare has been particularly prone to this tendency – compounded, of course, by representations of ancient warfare in many popular media. On the other hand, enhanced peace literacy can significantly improve inner peace and wellbeing, interpersonal relations, and conflict resolution in different spheres of life, empowering young people to take ownership of peacebuilding in their own lives. For both reasons, it is high time that we invested more research and resources in young people’s explorations of ancient peace and peacebuilding, alongside the study of military history.
A further pressing issue is an increase in the numbers of trauma-experienced young people within our education systems, some of whom have direct experience of armed conflict. This requires more trauma-informed practice than is currently in place. Ancient warfare has long been perceived as so distant in time that contemporary traumas are often overlooked in its teaching, while the historic but profound impacts on real people’s past lives have frequently been airbrushed. When approached sensitively, however, the study of both historical episodes and creative representations of ancient war and peace offers valuable opportunities for young people to develop critical awareness of war’s impacts and of the legacy of entrenched habits of war- and peace-storytelling, which continue to inform the ways in which we approach conflict today.
An enhanced approach to teaching ancient war and peace is thus desirable for many reasons, not only to equip students of Classics to visualize ancient warfare and peacebuilding in more holistic ways but also to contribute to wider war and peace literacy, with real-world benefits. That is what our new project – Teaching Ancient War and Peace – aims to do.
Handbook for Teaching Ancient War and Peace
Contributions are invited to an innovative ‘Handbook for Teaching Ancient War and Peace’ (to be published by Routledge). A wide range of authors is encouraged, including teachers and learners at all levels. Contributions are welcome for any of the book’s planned sections, outlined below. Please send expressions of interest or enquiries to [email protected] by May 31st 2026.
Designed to complement the recently commissioned Routledge Handbook for Teaching about War and Conflict, it will focus on ancient-world material but with a view to shaping practice in a wide range of classrooms/subject areas (including Classical studies, history, English literature, art history, philosophy, politics, international relations, conflict resolution, refugee studies) and in diverse educational contexts (e.g. in drama schools, mediation contexts, museum spaces and tourist sites, as well as primary-, secondary- and tertiary-level classrooms).
Goals: in dialogue with developments in other fields (e.g. peace education, critical military studies, curriculum decolonisation, gender studies), this handbook aims to advance the teaching of ancient conflict beyond the militarised/militarising methods that currently dominate, incorporating more study of ancient peace and peacebuilding alongside more diverse, bottom-up understandings of ancient armed conflict (in its multiple manifestations) and its wide-ranging, long-lasting impacts.
Its introduction will contextualise the teaching of ancient war and peace against pedagogical theory and practice in other subject areas. It will also address current social, cultural and political factors which are relevant for the development of new pedagogic practice in relation to war/peace, including the need for trauma-informed approaches.
Section 1 (consisting of 6-8 chapters, of c. 5000-words in length) will analyse current trends in teaching ancient war and peace (comparing patterns internationally) and their real-world consequences (e.g. the normalisation of war, the marginalisation of non-elite voices, racial stereotyping, limited peace literacy). These chapters will be written by a mix of classroom teachers and Classics researchers; at least two will incorporate (and be substantially directed by) the voices of current learners (accessed via focus groups), to ensure that student voices can contribute meaningfully. The co-production of knowledge around teaching ancient war and peace with learners is a key aspect of this project, and the relevant ethics permissions are already in place to facilitate this.
Section 2 (consisting of 10-12 chapters of c. 5000-words in length) will share pedagogic reflections on innovative approaches to teaching different aspects of ancient war and peace, in different educational contexts around the world. Contributors to this section will discuss the context for and reasons behind their innovations, choice of source materials, classroom activities and assessment methods. Some student voice will be included in these chapters, alongside the reflections of educators from school and university settings.
Section 3 (consisting of 8-10 chapters of c. 5000-words in length) will discuss the bridges that can be built between the teaching of ancient conflict and modern contexts (e.g. the use of ancient material in modern peace education or citizenship teaching, the role that trauma-informed approaches to ancient warfare can play in therapeutic settings, how demilitarising ancient-world studies can enhance contemporary war and peace literacy amongst different stakeholders, the use of Classical case studies in conflict resolution workshops). Contributors to this section will include educators from beyond Classics in dialogue with ancient-world experts, with a view to leading to changes in practice well beyond Classics teaching.
The Handbook will conclude with some reflections on future opportunities for adapting how we teach ancient war/peace in the light of fast-paced developments in global politics, technology and educational priorities, and on how we can deploy ancient case studies in other contexts to contribute to wider teaching about conflict, past, present and future.
The book will touch on primary-level education, but will focus mostly on secondary and tertiary learning environments. The bulk of its contributions will discuss education delivered in classroom settings, but it will also examine other educational contexts such as museum spaces and tourist sites. It will feature case studies from the Global South as well as the Global North, examining pedagogic practice from the UK to Colombia.