Rating: 
Summary: One theory behind European ascendancy.
Review: Outstanding thesis: The West isn't fundamentally different from any other civilization in history -- not braver, not better. Like everyone else, we kicked but to get what we wanted. We just did it better than everyone else, at least we have over the recent millennium. He poses an explanation of why we were able to do that. He attributes it to a combination of nine characteristics of Western culture that usually were not found together in other cultures, and certainly not as consistently as in the West: freedom, civic militarism, decisive battle (as opposed to ritualistic battle), technology, capitalism, discipline, civil control over military operations, free speech and dissent, and constitutional government.
A most interesting read (albeit a bent towards Eurocentrism probably makes it easier to accept).
Rating: 
Summary: The Brutality of Capitalism
Review: Hanson's well-written book proves that there is a regimented mechanistic brutality at the very heart of western capitalist-democracy. He claims it as a virtue. I wouldn't.He spoils the book in my opinion with his final chapter on Vietnam. It seems to have little relevance to the arguments presented elsewherr in the book. It is used as a convenient hanger for Mr Hanson to slam those whom he claim "lost" the Vietnam War for America.
Rating: 
Summary: Western Triumphalism
Review: This book is pure nonsense. There is no such thing as "Western Civilization," and the notion of the West as opposed to the East is pure fabrication. What is exhibited here is ideological Euro-American cultural triumphalism. The battles may be wonderfully described, but the organizing thesis that there is a Western manner of warfare, and it reflects Western cultural values is pure fiction...
Rating:
Summary: The top book of the year!!
Review: "This book is one of the most important works to have been published in recent memory. While we face troubling times ahead, and Western civilization seems in decline, when we get our act together we will prevail. Hanson's book puts to flight the naysayers, the cultural moral equivalent, and political correct crowd--and not a moment too soon. This book is must reading for all who cherish and seek to preserve our Western heritage."
Rating:
Summary: Don't Break Ranks !
Review: Discipline wins over individual courage, despite Homer's enthralling duels between champions, a concept which the rational Greeks soon discovered; along with the concept of reason itself which is why The West Has Won. Hanson believes that the Apache braves, murderously effective in surprise raids, would have lasted about an hour at Gettysburg. At the battle of Poitiers the average Frank would have lumbered into battle with aprox 70 lbs of armor and arms, making him easy pickings for the light Muslim cavalry--had he broken ranks. (In which case we'd all be debating whether The Koran should be read in public school, but that's another story). Discipline and the determination to hold the ground, then an advance en masse wiped out the Saracens. Hanson asserts discipline is even more important than terrain or numbers.--In all three of Alexander's decisive battles against the Persians, vastly larger enemy forces chose the ground, not him. Alexander was overjoyed that he could fight a pitched battle rather than have to continue to chase Darius. At Gaugamela , when Alexander's left wing was about to break, the Persians decided that looting the camp was easier than fighting the Greek rear, thus giving him time to break through their lines and massacre the bunch. Again, discipline carried the day. Hanson believes that the free 'farmer-citizen' will be superior to a mercenary. A logical point which he does belabor at times to emphasize his thesis. And despite loopholes in his arguments (Were the Japanese freer than Darius's troops thus accounting for their very 'Western' resistance in the atolls of The Pacific to the USMC? Or were they equally unfree as the Persians during the battle at Midway, thus resulting in their defeat?) nevertheless, the preponderance of evidence weighs in his favor. Hanson seems a bit ambivalent about the 'great man theory' (the military genius commander)Although it would seem to fit in well with the Western concept of individualism. Perhaps because Hannibal was a 'great man' and the Romans made mincemeat of the Phoenician state despite the 'great man's' initial stunning victory at Cannae. The Romans wered decidedly 'Western' in their approach to war. Yet Hanson does point out that the Spaniards sent out an expedition to Florida shortly after Cortes's victory which, despite its superior technology got itself killed very dead indeed--the commander was no Cortes. Incidentally, the chapter on Hernando Cortes is, if not the best, certainly one of the most amazing in this highly informative and readable book, principally because of the misconceptions that it clears; No, the Aztecs did NOT believe the Spaniards were gods after the first couple of weeks, and yes though they were killed in vast numbers by smallpox, this was more than balanced by the bronchial ailments that plagued the tiny expeditionary force. H.C. was a military genius. As to the Tet offensive, Hanson rightly calls attention to the fact that it was a major victory for the American side despite the failure in intelligence to warn the troops, but an ultimate loss due to what he believes to be the 'criticism inherent in a free society.' Here he verges on contradicion, as he criticizes the conduct of the Vietnam war more vehemently than any leftist; i.e; we should have invaded the North; winning hearts and minds is the goal of a missionary, not soldiers, and what kind of madness is it when there is no ground to hold or win, anyway? Hanson should conclude that the war was badly led from his own arguments. Or, if one grants that a 'Western' type of conflict was untenable in Indochina we should have stuck with SOG/ Apaches to lead small anti insurgent forces. As to the future, the author concludes that the armies of the USA and Europe are now, de facto 'mercenary'--no more free citizen farmers--but lower class kids trying to work their way up in society. He's concerned as to whether the West will have the will to remain 'Western'--could we, as the Romans did after Cannae, muster up the resolve and manpower for 'shock battle' and decisive engagents which lead to unconditional defeat of the enemy? The reader might recall that after the bombings of American embassies then President Clinton ordered an attack by cruise missles one of Osama's base in Afghanistan--for all the good it did us. It was 'Western' only as far as technology (which Hanson argues is not enough). It was decidedly 'foreign' according to all the principles that this book articulates to be the backbone of Western warfare. Good reading.
Rating:
Summary: History for Non-Historians, by fermed
Review: The thesis of this book is that Western civilization has interwoven into its cultural fabric some fundamental concepts of warfare that make the West invincible (in the long run) when in war against armies from other cultures, and extraordinary deadly when Western armies fight one another. The theory is that the seeds for this deadly culture of warfare can be found in the political organization of armies, starting with the assimilation of democratic ideals in the selection of generals and other leaders in Greece combined with the extreme discipline and organizational genius of the Romans; and above all in the near constant infusion of science and technology into the process of warfare that has led, over the centuries and up to the present, to a refinement of weapons and to the continual renewal of the techniques of war. The notion that the enemy should be obliterated by any means is central to Western warfare. Not being a historian, I was surprised and delighted by the concepts and ideas that are presented in each of the nine critical battles that constitute the core of this book. It isn't that I don't know history at all, but I have never been lead by the hand and told of a battle "Here, look at this..." For instance, I was aware of Cortez and of his defeat of the Aztec empire with just a handful of men and horses, aware that the Mexica expected God-like creatures to come from the East as was prophesied, aware that the natives thought that men on horses were a single unit, etc. But that had little to do with why a few Spaniards won Tenochtitlan, the island city of the Aztecs. By the time they had lived among the natives for a few months, the notion that these were Gods had pretty well vanished: horses were seen as huge deer, and the Spaniards, who ate, defecated and mated just like the natives, had lost their divine glamor; and so when the natives drove them from their city on La Noche Triste (Melancholy Night), with a wounded Cortez, decimated troops, lost cannon and armaments, the Aztecs claimed victory but did not pursue them to extinction, which they could easily have done. It was not their habit to vanquish the enemy, but rather to capture and bind them and sacrifice them to their Gods. They did not follow through with their victory. Cortez, on the other hand, immediately started plotting a victorious return. He found that the land that surrounded lake Texcoco was rich in minerals and chemicals needed for warfare; that enemies of the hated Aztecs would became willing partners in providing him help. Native metal smiths were given Spanish designs and crafted 100,000 copper arrowheads for their bows, and 50,000 metal bolts for the their crossbows; they obtained sulfur for gunpowder from the nearby Popocatepetl by lowering workers on ropes into the vocano's sides and scraping the chemical. Cortez ordered 13 prefabricated, shallow draft brigantines to be constructed in Veracruz. This fleet was dismantled for transportation across land, and reassembled at specially constructed canals on the shores of lake Texcoco. It took Cortez and his allies 13 months of frantic labor to do all that had to be done to conquer Tenochtitlan by land (over the causeways) and by water, and when he struck his blows not much was left of the Aztec capital. The slaughter was horrific, and afterwards there was no Aztec empire left. The traditions of the West, including great discipline, leadership, superior technology, adaptive tactics, and ruthlessness had prevailed once more. The battles described in this book (brilliantly descibed!) are Salamis, Gaugamela, Cannae, Poitiers, Tenochtitlan, Lepanto, Rorke's Drift, Midway and Tet, covering a period from 480 BC to 1968. The prose and the narrative style are exciting and thus the book is hard to turn loose. I am sure historians will argue much about this work and its theoretical underpinnings; but as a non-historian I was delighted by the book, and so I recommend it to general readers with at least a smattering of history and a great deal of love for good prose.
Rating:
Summary: Great Analysis (Until we reach the 20th century...)
Review: A must read for anyone interested in either military history or the rise of the West. Each chapter looks back to its predecessors and anticipates its offspring, weaving together examples from many timelines and cultures. The result is a fluid presentation rather than episodic preaching. Each chapter throws the reader into the battle, usually at the climactic moment, then follows the battle to its conclusion and immediate aftermath. Only then does Hanson draw back to describe the campaign. Finally, and most interestingly, are the analyses that make up the bulk of each chapter. Hanson slips into occasional anachronisms, most troubling, his insistence on labeling ancient and medieval economies as 'capitalist' when most economists trace the emergence of capitalism from mercantilism during the Renaissance or even later. This is a common failing when an author has a plan and all his examples need to fit it. Instead, reality is more complex. This oversimplification becomes problematic his all too easy dismissal of the effects of geography and other theories - going so far as to claim that Japan is the classic refutation of the now popular idea that topography, resources such as iron and coal deposits, or genetic susceptibility to disease and other natural factors largely determine cultural dyamism and military prowess. He sets this up as simple dialectic, without really demonstrating any major problems in these theories, instead claiming that his theory explains everything better. Jared Diamond ( Guns, Germs and Steel ) and William McNeil's ( Rise of the West, Power ) arguments are still strong, and Hanson is really showing complementary factors that gave the West its superiority in certain areas, not a complete theory to replace these other factors. The final two battles are the weakest in the book - Midway presents little new information to build on other works about this well documented battle. The Vietnam battle of Tet is an oddity - a Procrustean choice tailored to fit Hanson's conservative ideology; he basically resorts to the tired "the media lost the Vietnam war". In previous chapters the lack of footnotes is a minor irritation, but here it becomes a major problem. In the ancient history sections, Hanson is justifiably skeptical of the numbers presented by classical authors. In Tet, however, he throws out numbers that only the most conservative of think tanks would support, without indicating his source, or any competing views. Perhaps worst is his claim that the North Vietnamese were responsible for the overwhelming majority of civilian deaths in the war, minimizing or excusing the massive US bombing and defoliation campaigns. (For an extensive discussion of the campaign against the Ho Chi Minh trail, see John Prados' Blood Road ) Vietnam counters rather than exemplifies his list of Western qualities, and instead is merely another example of the use of brute force (cf Len Deighton's Brute Force description of WWII). Hanson should have remembered his own earlier chapters which show how a liberal, democratic, capitalistic, individualistic army and nation are difficult to defeat - when they're fighting a war that they can believe in. Rather than blaming what he terms treasonous action by antiwar protesters, and a overly liberal media, the real reasons for the US defeat in Vietnam have already been presented. When the government lies about its aims, supports oppressive regimes, and covers up the real situation, then exposure by any media leads to disaffection. The fault was not the media's but rather that there was so much wrong for them to expose.
Rating:
Summary: Thought-provoking and stimulating
Review: ....P>Hanson makes a few mistakes - for instance he has an irritating habit of accepting without question all the assertions of the ancient historians. I would doubt that Xerxes' army was as large as Herodotus asserts, and the description of Alexander's general Parmenio accepts him as the 'fall-guy' to highlight the genius of the King. Similarly, the Roman army had abandoned the Legionary system by the 4th centtury BC and the army that was defeated at Adrianople was 25% cavalry in an excellent 'combined arms' army of heavy and light infantry, and heavy and light cavalry. The battle was lost not because of the legionary system, but because of Valens' stupid decision to march eight miles and attack the Gothic wagon laager with a tired and dehydrated force, without keeping reserves to keep the effective Gothic cavalty in check. Valens was at the end of a victorious season's campaigning against the Goths and if he had waited for the army of the Western Empire to arrive, he could have easily have defeated the Goths and saved the Empire. However, this does ilustrate one of Hanson's major points - Western defeats are mainly die to egregious tactical errors and arrogance on the part of Western commanders.Isandlwana was one he mentions, though a TV programme I saw recently asserted that an eclipse of the sun during the battle was another reason for the British defeat and slaughter. One he does not menion is Nicopolis (1399), described in Tuchman's book 'A Distant Mirror'. Here an army composed of the flower of French and Hungarian chivalry was disastrously defeated by the Ottoman Sultan Bayazet. Fortunately for the West, Bayezet was soon afterwards defeated and slain by the Turkish Timurlane. True, there was the usual blind assault by the French mounted knights (as at Crecy and Agincourt) but it was a 'luckly escape' for the West. One also feels that Hanson could have chosen better examples. Israel, for example, seems to me to be almost the paradigmatic example of his case, but gets only a passing mention. Lepanto is not a great example, as he himself points out briefly, the future of sea warfare lay with the British galleons that were to defeat the Spanish Armada, not the galleys and galleasses of the Venetians. I suppose Hanson wants to point out the rare examples of successful capitalism among Catholic countries of the Mediterranean before primacy was won by the Dutch, English, Germans and French. The most difficult counter-argument if the fact that many autocratic Western states ahve also had very successful armies - the best example being Germany and the USSR in the 1940-45 period. I agree with Hanson here - he uses the example of Alexander the Great to show that a bloodthirsty tyrant can twist the ideals of the West to suit his own ends, but in the long run his system or empire will suffer the fate of non-Western autocracies. Therefore Stalin was the most victorious Communist leader in history, yet his Empire only surivied forty years after his death. Alexander's successors eventually succumbed to Rome. Hanson does play up too much the democratic pretensions of Greece and Rome. He criticises Athens for its disastour attack on Syracuse, but its slaughter of the inhabitants of the island of Melos gets only a mention.At the Teutoberg Forest, where the German tribal chief Arminius defeated three Roman legions, was probably as important in prpecerving Western liberty was Salamis. Augustus (the Roman Emperor) was a despot, Arminius was a leader who had to maintain his following by personal magnetism i.e. there was an element of choice in following him. Ironically, Arminius was later slain by his own family when his orders became too autocratic for their tastes. We underestimate the debt representative democracy owes to the 'tribal councils' of Germanic and Celtic tribes. Hanson's arguments are rich and complex - this is not (as I feared it would be) another 'greatest battles' list. Not all can be accepted - for example diseases like small pox had a greater impact on the conquest of the New World than Hanson admits. The first explorer of the Amazon basin (Orellana) found city after city (not stone, but wood) with millions of inhabitants. The second explorers found only empty habitations. The same is true for explorers of the Mississippi basin. If there populations had been resistant to white man's diseases, there might today be an Amerindian Afghanistan or Ethiopia in the Andes or the Rockies, as indeed an Inca kingdom (Vilcabamba) did survive for many years. He also overestimates Western tradition of giving battle - alternative strategies are what Archer Jones calls a 'logistics strategy' where the enemy is deprived of food and supplies. For example, the Plains Indians were as much defeated by the wiping out of the buffalo as by battle. In the end, I could only partially agree with Hanson's gloomy diagnosis that what we have to fear in not China or Islam, but another inter-Western 'Civil War' as ruinous as the Second World War. Even the EU as a whole cannot match the US military budget, and there is no flashpoint where their interests clash, though there is a gap opening up just now over Israel and Palestinians. However, the alliance survived Vietnam which Europe (West and East) uniformly opposed. After September 11th, he may prefer to re-write this last chapter to take account of a terroristic strategy that might lead on to a logistics strategy of depriving the West of its oil. There is also the possibity of a terrorist group obtaiing weapons of mass destruction - something he discounts too glibly. All in all, a graetr read, highly reccommended.
Rating:
Summary: Informative, but doesn't answer the big question WHY
Review: I enjoyed this book, which I heard of after hearing Hanson and Jared Diamond on NPR. Some of his comments on the air and in the intro are directed at the latter's _Guns, Germs & Steel_. Rather than presenting an alternate explanation for Western dominance I felt both books are two sides of the same coin. This book falls short not in its premise, but that it never asks why the West fights the way it does. Sure, freemen make better soldiers than slaves, and total war is more devastating than ritual war, but what caused the West to adopt these stances? IMO Diamond's study tackles these questions, whereas Hanson ignores them. My other quibbles with this book are minor; overall it is excellently written. The "Top Ten" - pick and choose method of battles makes me wonder if he ignored battles that undermine his theory. Overall, his arguments weaken as approaches modern times - guns and germs explain the outcomes of Tenochtitlan, Lepanto and Rorke's Drift as well as civic militarism does. And I wonder why the "individualism" exhibited by Zulu warriors is bad while the "individualism" of Americans at Midway is good. Again, make no mistake, this book was great. Had it sought for or concentrated on the roots of Western warfare in Greece it would be even better. I advise readers to take its contents in context with other books in the field.
Rating:
Summary: COMMUNITAS & "high tech sinews": The Western Way of War
Review: The author of The Western WAY OF WAR and THE SOUL OF BATTLE has written a fascinating study of 9 "Landmark Battles in the Rise of Western Power".Unlike Edward S. Creasey's Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World (the Greek victory over Persia at Marathon to the climactic defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo)which summarizes events and proposes a panoply of reasons why these clashes would "sway the fortunes of successive generations of mankind", Victor Davis Hanson focuses on two determinate factors. COMMUNITAS, a bonding spirit of allegiance to common IDEAL. And, "capitalist-bred technology": what the orator Cicero called THE SINEWS OF WAR. For American readers these themes are, in my estimate, most clearly developed in Chapter 4: Citizen Soldiers--concerning the battle of Cannae on August 2, 216 BC; and in Chapter 10: Dissent and Self-Critique--concerning the Tet Offensive of 1968 regarded by virtually all historians as turning-point battle for America in the Vietnam war. Victor Hanson chooses the irony of the greatest single defeat Rome suffered (70,000 men; 12-14 Legions, annihilated by Hannibal)in its Republican history, rather than the WORLD-ORDER altering victory at Zama in 202 BC by Scipio to emphasize COMMUNITAS stirring SPQR to invincible ferocity..... "CARTHEGO DELICTO EST(Carthage must be destroyed)!" declared Cato. At the end of the Third Punic War (146 BC), the Legions razed the city; plowed its foundations underground; and sowed the dust with salt.This was consummation of THE WESTERN WAY of War.An independent nation imbued with the Ideal of the Citizen-Farmer/soldier volunteering to fight as THE SENATE & ROMAN PEOPLE. The myth of General Cincinnatus became reality expanding the "Greek Polis" by "Civic Militarism" that made Rome master of its destiny...and much of the world...1000 years. Chapter 10 is subtitled "Victory as Defeat". Here Hanson examines the ironic obverse: how the pillars of modern civic militarism (a CONSENTUAL draft; and free press to criticize military purpose and efficacy)were "successfuly" challenged and shaken; leading to the first major defeat of American arms in Vietnam. Victor Hanson does NOT "blame" the press. Nor does he credit or rebuke any single group or factor ((The TV-izing of battles for Saigon; Hue or Fire-base Khe Sanh or any policies of 5 US Presidents who prosecuted the war)). COMMUNITAS simply did not exist.The bonding spirit was broken(demeaned). This realty was exploited to the detriment of not only combat efforts of the American Expeditonary Force but the commonweal in general. Thus, "high tech/ sinews of war"...reprised from ancient SPQR through the Medieval Battle at Lepanto where Papal-sponsored Holy League Christians decisively defeated Ottoman Muslims because CAPITALISM KILLS (Chapter 7); to the fire-bombing raids and ultimate atomic bomb attacks of WWII...were "manque". The "lack" was not in the skill but in THE WILL... Or perhaps THE WHY? which is not precisely the same. Victor Davis Hanson has emerged as America's John Keegan. This is intended as compliment to the author and encouragement to readers. This book is not...excactly...a celebration of Western Triumphalism nor a rallied American Confidence as the world's currenly preeminent practioner of THE WESTERN WAY OF WAR. In the SOUL of BATTLE...whose themes this book further expands...the author boldly implies that RIGHT MAKES MIGHT. When Forces of the West oppose despotism...ancient or modern; Eastern or Western...the "WEST" WINS! The PCer's; Universalists and Historical Deconstructionists may not truck with such a "reactionary" view. However: CULTURE and CARNAGE...like headlines from Today...or history texts not exclusively written to promulgate astrology, geography, or weather as THE reason why armies conquer...should give an interested reader "cause for pause" that Victor Davis Hanson has, indeed, captured the ESSENCE of The Western Way of War......
| 
