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Summary: A solid read, with a provocative theory
Review: One steps away from reading this book with a great appreciation for the benefits of our Western civilization, and, I hope, a fortified desire to protect it and its institutions from its enemies. Thankfully, this book's central argument also bolsters one's confidence about the strength and endurance of those institutions.Although I agree with the central ideas presented by this book, probably because I very much wish them to be true, I am troubled by a couple of untidy loose ends that the author either fails to address or only touches upon. For instance, what does "the West" mean? how does a state become "western" and how does it lose that status? It seemed that the author was too willing to apply the "Western" label to those situations where it supported his argument. A corollary to that problem is - why doesn't he cover the annihilation of "western" ideas by invading armies? The "west" has not been universally successful in defending itself from foreign encroachment - if Poitiers was the "high-water mark" of Islamic conquest of Western Europe, what about the "tidal pools" and "inter-tidal zones" -- Spain, the Balkans, North Africa, Egypt and other Roman colonies?? Do those areas suddenly not count as the "west"? How did they lose that label - those colonies were the home of many great Roman thinkers, like Seneca, after all? Perhaps the author's creative use of the label "western" is actually the result of some scale of "westernness"? Perhaps the Carolingian Monarchy was only "more western" than the Spanish Christians that were overrun by the Islamic invaders? But maybe they were "less western" than ancient greeks? What kept Alexander's troops "western" through their campaign throughout the known world? The author freely admits that at the end of his life, Alexander was more like the Persian kings who he destroyed than the Hellenic ideal his Greek tutors probably instilled in him - is each generation to be measured against the last for how "western" it is? In any case, perhaps it is my faith in the strength of our institutions that makes me believe in (and unashamedly want to believe in) the central premise of this book; however, a reader would have to be willingly blinding themselves to overlook the perhaps too-convenient omissions. Nevertheless, I wholeheartedly recommend this book to anyone interested in a rational and intriguing theory on why the West has triumphed militarily. As with any book with a broad theoretical argument, enjoy the tasty flesh of the fruit, but watch out for the rotten parts.
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Summary: one of the most well writen military history books i've read
Review: this book by hanson is a masterpiece the way that he shows the evolution of the western way of warfare and the way that their culture has made them vertually unstoppable and the way that hanson shpws this without being preachy and rude and too opinionated he just displays the facts and the truth is so obvious. this book is a must read for anybody that likes military history !!!!!
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Summary: how bout a little more
Review: THis is a wonderful treatise on the rise of the west and our essential values: Freedom and individualism. As the British at ROurkes Drift and the American at Midway dared to fight to end against superior numbers it was apparent that we, the west, and our values were the central point in why we won. Thier is some question as to how this applies to Alexander in India, as he crushed his enemies through military genious. Was it because his soldiers were free thinkers? ... This is a wonderful read, very well presented. The author weaves many tales together at once. When looking at Lepanto, the crucial naval victory that finally ended Islams relentless enslavement and raiding of Italians in the Medditeranean. The authors contention is that the victory had more to do with the birth of capitalism then the superiority of western military prowess. Indeed it was the Venicians who led the vanguard into the muslim masses, wading into them with the sword and the cross, but apparently secretly looking forward to the immense profits they would reap upon conqueriing the seas. True. This author is brilliant in showing us these esential values of how free market economics and freedom of speach helped us win time and again against brutal dictators whose soldiers never exersized independent thought and were doomed to failure like the Zulus. A great account. Essential for understaning the key to the victory of the west over far cuperior military powers.
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Summary: Every conservative should read this book
Review: Every conservative should read this book!
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Summary: Controversial but worth reading
Review: This author is sure controversial, but he is always worth reading - perhaps the most intelligent of the neoconservative authors writing today. On this kind of issue, his chosen field of ancient history, he is in fact right - which is why I give him five stars. The Greeks may not have been a democracy in the sense that we understand that word, inherited from them of course, today, but they were fighting for what they believed in, unlike the might imperial armies of Persia, their main enemy. So well worth reading. Christopher Catherwood, author of CHRISTIANS, MUSLIMS AND ISLAMIC RAGE (Zondervan, 2003 - a book that quotes Hanson more than once)
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Summary: Always Controversial
Review: What's great about VDH is that he is not affraid to tackle contversial topics, or to see old events in a new light. What he has done here is taken the old analysis of battles a la Creasy, and elevated it to a whole new level. Seven pivital battles are examined, which in VDH's opinion define the West's battlefield superiority over the centuries. The battles are examined not only from the military perspective, but from social and idealogical slants as well. VDH is a different kind of military historian, perhaps considered too radical or conservetive for some, but deffinitely worth reading to gain different insights into well chatered waters. The battles discussed are all well known, some more than others. In his chatpter on Cortes and the conquest of the Aztecs, VDH dares to challenege the popular notion of the poor natives versus the cruel European colonizers. VDH clearly shows that Cortez and the Spainish were ruthless, but also remarkable at the same time. And the Aztecs were no shrinking violets, a huge native empire that ruled over all others in Central America by terror and human sacrefices. We see the Spanish conquest of Central America in a new light, less simplistic and more within the context of the times. The same is done with the Zulu War of 1879. Myth and hero worship of the Zulu warrior is debunked by showing that it was the heavily burdened redcoat, always outnumbered, far from home, but the product of a civil militia tradition that harkens back to Greco-Roman times who was better. This inate discipline has enabled the West to consistently defeat the Other in many battles. The West's superior technology, often used by revisionists to debunk these victories is seen as part of the Occident's ability to develop science and technology without restriction from government or religion. This has constantly restricted the effective development of armies in Islam, as well as other cultures. The fact that the Western soldier is not a slave, like his non-western counter-part often is, also gives him added strength and iniative in battle. The book concludes with the battle of Midway and the Tet offensive. At Midway the US confronted a modern Japanese Navy, which was still under the influences of feudalism. VDH provides a fascinating analysis of how Japan could only develope modernity to a limited point in its otherwise closed society. The Japanese started WW2 with modern weapsons, but because of their imporation of Western technology, without the social freedoms that made it possible, the Imperial armies would soon find themselves out-classed by vastly superior weapons in thr US developed on a scale never possible in socially feudal Japan. The book concludes with a conversial discussion on Viet Nam and the Tet Offensive of 1968. Here many will find VDH's views hard to swallow, but his arguments carry some truth to them. The US war effort in Nam was severely restricted by politics and social unrest, which prevented the military from exploiting the sucesses it managed to achieve. Here VDH shows that the West can also be undermined by the very freedoms that often give it so much strength in War. The press and Liberal opinions sided with the Communists in the war, regardless of what attrocities they committed. Public opinion refused to see otherwise, and would pounce harshly on any bumbled US operations. The US attrocities at My Lai pale in comparison to what the NVA was doing in the countryside to intimidate the peasants, but the Abby Hoffmans and Jane Fondas of the time wanted nothing less than a total US defeat! Such are the occasional mixed blessings of a free society at war in a nasty conflict. This is a book which many will consider Right wing or conservetive. For sure die-hard Liberals and the Politically Correct will be offended here, but VDH while passing hard judgement on them, is also critical of government and the military establishment. Also his grasp on military and social history is hard to deny, and the writing is forceful and direct, if a bit redundant at time. VDH likes to pound his views home, and in several of his books the reader may sometimes tire of the rhetorical nature of his arguments. VDH often argues and debates like an old Roman or Greek statesmen. He is elegent, but repetitive at times. Still, this is quite a thought provoking book which redresses a lot of the revisionists who have downgraded the military acheievments of the West recently. Like him or no, VDH is always controversial, informative, and never affraid to debate unpopular issues.
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Summary: Shock Troops, Schmock Troops! Extremely Dishonest
Review: (UPDATE OF PREVIOUS REVIEW) I enjoyed this book at the beginning and the end when he postulates a vaugue and interesting idea.... but from the start the really annoying thing (and its gets more and more annoying the further you read) is his endless repetition of his thesis: THESIS: The Western Tradition in war is the product of the Greek Polis and its continuance is manifested in the same ways as it essentially was during the good ol' days of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and whoever else they could fit around the table at the "Symposium": free citizen soldiers with certain rights to property, life, the ability to elect civic officials, and a scientific method of inquiry, all these qualities make better soldiers. Moreover they yeild a method of battle seeking to conclusively close with the enemy and defeat him in "shock battle" (I do not know how many times he uses that term). Hansen offers cases studies in battles, but he draws them out WAY TOO MUCH.....! Therefore his best writing is at the beginning, when he introduces his ideas, and at the end, when he is forced to reach conclusions --- in both areas we are presented a lot of new, and therefore non-repetative, information. Some concerns with this book are: 1) Extremely reductionist. Every battle cited is further proof of his thesis. Even Cannae, where an army not of the western tradition the Carthaginians (an extremely contentious statement since Carthage was founded by Greeks, but hey, who am I to argue with a classics scholar), defeated the Romans who were the very apotheosis of the western tradition. Hansen has an answer however: the very fact they lost the battle was indicative that Romans were able to absorb enormous losses and then raise armies of free citizen soldiers again whilst those of Carthage were doomed to ultimately loose the war because they were ultimately an authoritarian state. Citizen soldier states win even when hey lose! The exception proves the rule as it were.... This is a supremely reductionist argument and one surprising coming from a teacher of the Classics. Every battle he picked (indeed, any battle he could pick) would serve as proof of his central thesis. Such is the essence of poor history and even poorer intellectual honesty... 2) War And the Liberal Tradition: Hansen rightly asks the question of what would happen if two nations of the western, classical tradition fight. Some notion is seen in the modern battles of the Somme, Passchendale, and Stalingrad. Hansen also reafirms the liberal assertion that democracies do not fight, but he also admits that there is little room for error in the future if they even do... But he does not go into the implications of this theory. There are only about 4-5 pages in the entire tome that deal with this subject. 3) Case Studies: His chapters on Salamis, Rourke's Drift & Midway are the best and although cliche at times, are supremely interesting and offer interesting perspectives on the nature of all combatants (I really liked his section on Midway and although I have read a lot on this battle, I found he had a lot new to say that was interpretive). His worst chapter is the one on Tet, which seems almost tacked on the end of the book (he should lose it) and offers nothing new accept the currently "conservative" fashionable reinterpretation that America really did win this war. There is no mention about the fact that, agree or not, this was a popular war of liberation (waged immorally by both the North and the US); the utter mendacity of US Generals and soldiers in the field and; no notion that just and moral regimes supported by the people could and should really support and fight for themselves. 4) Morality: One point that Hansen states is that the western way of warfare, although more efficient, is no more moral than any other and much more bloody because it seeks decisive "shock battle" with the enemy. His examples seem to bear out his assertion about the amorality of the western military tradition. However with a system of battle that is so destructive it is incumbent on western morality (itself a product of the Greek tradition) to explain how morality in war is linked, how it can be linked, and how it SHOULD be linked. Moreover if the Greek Classical tradition produced both western morality and the western way of warfare, how are the two necessarily mutually exclusive as Hansen would have us believe. I think that any discussion of western morality may muddy the water and would have lead to a much more complicated book, though perhaps one less repetative and much more interesting. His ideas are merely interesting. There are enough holes (cited above) in his thesis to fire an 18 inch round from the Yamato through. And in this sense the value of his ideas are really to be found in the heuristics of such a study, to say that there is "truth" here is to impute far too much: the case studies range from Very Good (Salamis) to Extremely Bad (Tet) and just plain bad (Cannea and Lepanto). Even though I disagree with a lot of what Hansen says, I still would say that he has established a worthy subject with a lot of hard questions that need answers. As a heuristic approach, his book is a tour-de-force.... Now if he could only get a better editor for the next book, he will find a willing punter in me, one willing to plunk the US $ 35 ...down on his next work.....
As long as Hansen can promise me that I do not have to read the word "shock battle" 10 times on the same page
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Summary: A great look at military history
Review: I would not be discouraged from buying this book because of the one-star rating given by one of the reviewers. After reading the book I found that his review is similar to what you might expect from a philosophy graduate student who can't get over the fact that some civilizations are superior to others when it comes to some areas of human endeavor. Stick to space books, CS! The book offers a different view of history based on critical battles and offers some explanations why smaller military forces could win over either primitive of theocratically driven groups.
A lot of us wonder today why fanatical religious groups seem to "be out of it" and don't learn from history or their mistakes. This books helps to explain why this is happening in our time, and I found that explanation quite plausile. It also gives a very interesting look at important historical figues and what motivated them. So, if you like history, military history, and want a politically incorrect view of why some things today are the way they are, buy this book.
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Summary: The power of the western world explored
Review: Davis's fundamental thesis is that the West (defined roughly as Greco-Roman Europe and their successor empires) has dominated the world militarily for the last 2500 years because of political, social, and economic systems, not because of certain great men, epidemics, or natural geographical advantages. He presents his case convincingly by examining several battles in detail: the naval battles Salamis, Lepanto, and Midway; the infantry battles of Guagamala, Cannae, Tours, Cortes's destruction of the Aztecs, Rourke's Drift (British-Zulu War), and the Tet. Davis is deliberately challenging to the reader: why else would he call his first chapter "Why the West Has Won"? He then sets out to convince the reader that Western hegemony is due to the Western tradition of scientific freedom (research into better methods to kill), church/state separation (victory or defeat is not ordained by God), and political security/freedom. This last item seems to be the most important - if a soldier is secure that his lands are safe from arbitrary confiscation, he is more likely to fight to protect them. Likewise, he is free from arbitrary death/imprisonment from his ruler(s). Finally, the freedom to debate strategy allows the state to learn from mistakes and improve. Of course, zooming in on specific battles is dangerous when discussing general trends, but Davis always puts the battle in the larger strategic context. In fact, his most convincing chapter - that on Cannae - is a discussion of an abject defeat of (Western) Rome by (non-Western) Carthage. Hannibal was clearly the best general of his day, managed to annhilate 3 Roman legions, but in the end it was Carthage that was destroyed, not Rome. Why? - because the Roman constitutional republic produced better soldiers, generals, and equipment than despotic Carthage ever could. At the same time, this book drives the nail into the coffin of the "great man" theory - Hannibal, Genghis Khan, etc. were clearly better generals than their Western counterparts, but their peoples could not take and hold Western land after their passing because their governmental systems were not as strong as the West's system. The book is not perfect - Davis does tend to repeat himself a little. In addition, the final chapter on the Tet is terrible - it is mostly a moral justification for the U.S.'s involvement in Vietnam, rather than an analysis of the military issues. They are not fatal flaws, however, so armchair historians like myself will thoroughly enjoy this book.
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Summary: Interesting theory, sort of
Review: As I true military history buff, I was surprised by the fact that I put the book down 2/3 of the way into it without finishing it, something that I hadn't done for more than 2 years. From the descriptions that I read of it, I thought that I would find the book fascinating. On the other hand, the author's fundamental hypothesis, that Western armies are more effective warriors than any other, because the Western armies are free (or, perhaps I should say, are not living under authoritarian governments), has remained with me. I have considered the hypothesis during several subsequent reads. For instance, I am considering it in light of what I am reading about WWI. Though initially hesitant to do so (particularly the French), the French and English armies eventually adapted to their conditions, as they should be want to do, according to Hanson's hypothesis. In this case I am drawn to the hypothesis. However, I am, at the same time, dissuaded from believing the theory by the same treatise about WWI. The Russians, though not exactly living in a free society under the Czar, had to overcome tremendous logistical obstacles to present a credible threat to the Germans. I can't help but doubt the ingenuity shown by individuals in the Russian Army in getting before the Germans, particularly during the first few weeks of August 1914, when the French desperately needed the Russians to distract the Germans. Hanson has made an interesting case here. Though I am not thoroughly convinced by his theory, I can say that the work is thoughtfully presented.
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