| Summary/Abstract |
Not all small nations take quite such an extreme a view of their place in the world, but most of them have had historical experiences that justify this kind of existential fear. After all, the vulnerabilities of small nations have been demonstrated countless times throughout history. Thucydides famously recorded the fate of the island of Melos in his history of the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta in the fifth century BCE. A passage in this history, usually called the ‘Melian Dialogue’, describes how the leaders of Athens decided that Melos, which was aligned with Sparta, should be absorbed into their empire. Accordingly, they demanded that
Melos capitulate, under threat of all-out war.
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