“The Wars of the Ancient Greeks & their Invention of Western Military Culture”, by Victor Davis Hanson

 

224 pages, Orion, ISBN-13: 978-0304352227

Victor Davis Hanson is an expert on the period of Greek hoplite warfare, and it shows in The Wars of the Ancient Greeks & their Invention of Western Military Culture, a superb well-illustrated and comprehensive history of the Ancient Greek states from the earliest times to the Hellenic period. This book examines the development of war in ancient Greece through the dark ages after the collapse of Mycenaean civilization and through the Classical period, Hellenic Period and up to the conquest of Greece by Roman Legions. Be warned, however, as Hanson assumes his readers will have at least a basic knowledge of the primary texts of the era as he refers frequently to books such as Herodotus’ Histories, Thucydides’ Peloponnesian War, Xenophon’s Anabasis, and the works of Plutarch, Arian, Polybius and Xenon, amongst others. His overall thesis is that the way in which we fight today is a direct consequence of the Greek method of fighting and contends that the success of the Greeks against Persian armies dictated the development of the Western Way of War down to the present day. The good professor sees the early Hoplite age as a Golden Age of middle-class farmer-militias, going out to defend their land and homes from neighboring and foreign despots, and who were eventually betrayed by the democratic politicians who created a military-industrial complex that was in turn subverted by power-hungry dictators, the principles of which still dominate the world today. The Wars of the Ancient Greeks is an excellent book that does exactly what it says, describing how, from 1400BC through to Alexander the Great and beyond, the Greeks fought and (often) won, and their impact on modern warfare. Many modern parallels are drawn, and the analysis of Alexander is interesting and unusual, flying in the face of popular opinion, but still balanced. An excellent, very informative read.