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Alfred S. Bradford

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Alfred S. Bradford

Alfred S. Bradford

Professor Bradford is the John Saxon Chair in Ancient History. His most recent publication (August 2019) is The Blood-Drenched Sea: Ships at War in the Ancient Mediterranean. He has written books on Vietnam (a memoir), Philip the father of Alexander, piracy, war in the ancient world, the kings of Sparta, and War: Antiquity and Its Legacy(Oxford UP). He is an award-winning teacher who offers a wide variety of classes on the ancient world. He teaches a popular course titled The Ancient Art of War and another course on the history of Sparta. All his courses require students to work extensively with primary sources, a key way to help students understand cultures so different from their own and to learn how historians analyze such documents to construct arguments. Professor Bradford received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago.