The Wars of the Ancient Greeks (Cassell History of Warfare) [Englisch] [Gebundene Ausgabe]

Hanson, for those who somehow have missed him until now, is a professor of Classics at California State and also is a part time farmer, both of which have contributed to his writing as a military historian. As a classicist, Hanson is well versed in the sources in their original Greek, and as a farmer he understands how agriculture affected the experience of the Greeks at war. For it was the farmers of the early Greek polis who developed modern western warfare. Unlike other cultures, the Greek farmers couldn't afford to support professional armies or hire mercenaries, and they couldn't spend a great deal of time away from their farms campaigning. The Greek way of war was to gather up the militia, which comprised all the able bodied men of property who could afford the armor and equipment of a hoplite, march out to a convenient flat field to meet the men of the polis they were warring with, and in a matter of hours, get it over with in quick, brutal, decisive battle. Expounded at greater length in Hanson's ground-breaking "The Western Way of War," Greek battle is covered well here, from its earliest heroic developments in the Bronze Age, through the classic Greek era of the democratic polis, the Persian and the Peloponnesian Wars, and finishing with Alexander, the misnamed "Great." Important battles, including Marathon, Plataea, Delium and Gaugamela, are covered in depth.

Anyone interested in the ancient Greeks owes it to themselves to read this and, if possible, "The Western Way of War." It is utterly impossible to properly understand Hellenic culture without understanding how and why they fought. I recall with some hilarity the introduction to a book of poems by a well-known feminist writer who proclaimed that America must choose to be either Sparta or Athens, her obvious thesis being "Sparta - Warlike! Bad! Athens - Peaceful and Artistic! Good!" It's not that simple. Sparta admittedly was fascist, but pretty much stayed at home oppressing the helots, while Athens became a predatory imperialist democracy, bringing tragedy on itself and the Greeks in the process. It's also important to remember, as Hanson points out, that the great artists, writers, and philosphers were warriors at need. It may be hard to imagine Socrates or Aeschylus in the bronze panoply of a hoplite, but it happened.

This book is a great value in this format and at this price. It needs to be in the collection of anyone interested in military and/or classical history. And here's hoping that Cassell releases the rest of this series in this format!

First of all it is important to be aware that the author assumes the readers knowledge of primary texts of the era. He refers frequently to books such as Herodotous Histories, Thucydides Peloponnesian war, Xenophon's Anabasis and the works of Plutarch, Arrian, Polybius and Xeno amongst others.

Victor Davis Hanson believes that the way we fight today is a direct descendant of the Greek method of fighting. He contends that the successes of the Greeks against Persian armies dictated the development of war down to the present day.

This is a huge contention and one that I believe he fails to support. He speaks at length about the "Western way of war" without establishing how this differed significantly from other military systems. His contention that it was only in Greece that shock battle developed is flawed. Shaka, king of the Zulu nation, independently developed shock battle tactics, and he can be only one of many who came to the same end result from different starting points.

At times I felt that Hanson was trying to be sensationalist in making contentious statements that are ill supported by argument. Some examples of this tendancy are the following brave assertions!:

"The great Chinese military strategist Sun-tzu is sometimes cryptic, often mystical, and always part of some larger religious paradigm."

"Too many scholars like to compare Alexander to Hannibal or Napoleon. A far better match would be Hitler...."

"[The Hellenic Siege engine] was impractical gigantism on a magnitude comparable to the contemporary B-2 American bomber...."

However, in the end of the day what this book does give the reader is a well detailed account of some of the most important battles of the classical Greek and Alexandrian campaigns. Hanson focused primarily on infantry actions and comments little upon the naval engagements. But his analysis of battles involving heavy infantry phalanxes is detailed, interesting and enlightening. The illustrations of key battles serve as a useful visual guide to walk the reader through the events in sequence. And good use is made of contemporary illustrations from vase painting and sculpture to support the analysis.

A useful read for those with an interest in military history who want to concentrate on battles and the tactics involved.