A History of Warfare

Rating:
Summary: A superlative history of warfare
Review: Keegan has written an all-encompassing history of warfare from the earliest to current times. Of particular interest and importance is his tracing of warfare from an activity limited to a few to the "democratization" of war in which every citizen has the "opportunity" to become a participant.

Keegan neither glamorizes nor diminishes war. Rather he provides what he says he will in his a title: a history of warfare.

Valuable to any history buff or, for that matter, to anyone with an interest in attempting to understand the concept of war.

Jerry

Rating:
Summary: General History, from a Military Perspective
Review: As some have said, Keegan's focus on Clausewitz's theme ("War is the continuation of politics by other means") is not particularly rewarding, and he sometimes seems to be improvising rather than sticking to a theme. He may not even be an expert in all he speculates on.

With those quibbles noted, I loved this book. It doesn't just provide a solid survey of military technologies and their impacts, AND various forms of warmaking and the cultures that spawn them. It also gives the kind of survey of world history that historians don't seem to do anymore.

If you think there's value in knowing the difference between Huns, Goths, Teutons, Saxons, Mongols, and Mamelukes, and who invaded whom when, how, and why, I think this book provides it. And it does it much more thoroughly--and readably--than the half-dozen or so world history books that I've read.

This is a man who can give you the facts, propose reasons and theories, and still do it concisely and with passion.

Rating:
Summary: Military history of unparallelled scope
Review: Having finished my fourth reading of this outstanding book, I am again in awe of Keegan, who not only tackles a daunting subject --- nothing less than the entire history of armed conflict, from the dim mists of prehistory to the recent strife in the Balkans --- but manages to put it all into an impressively brief, insightful and readable narrative. Keegan does not debunk Clausewitz; rather, he shows him to have been a product of his age, his class and his nation, and his writings to have been suited to the post-Napoleonic era, but potentially disastrous in the Nuclear Age. (If international success is the same as military success today, than how can Saddam Hussein still be the leader of Iraq?) By approaching warfare as social and cultural anthropology (rather than from the far more narrow --- not to say blindered --- perspective of military theory alone), Keegan is able to show how each society's expression of warfare is both unique and has ramifications and consequences for all other societies, especially including our own. Buy and read this book. You'll be glad you did.

Rating:
Summary: Keegan's Writing Style Makes Reading Difficult
Review: I have painly read half of this book, and I have decided to give up and look for another book on the same subject. Keegan constantly, with every sentence, engages in digressions, diversions, and tangents. I found it quite difficult to focus on the material. I have read over 50 books in the last 5 years, and Keegan is one of the worst authors I have ever encountered. Reading Keegan is almost like dreaming - erratic, and difficult to remember. Reading Keegan is like hearing every last thought that runs through the mind. I highly recommend against this book.

Rating:
Summary: Not bad narrative, questionable analysis
Review: I like this book because it is comprehensive and wide-ranging in coverage, especially on warfare in the West. I don't always agree with Keegan, however. On one point, for example, Hitler, I disagree. Keegan thinks Hitler is unique in history, for three reasons: he used wars for political means, he believed in the warrior class superiority, and he was obsessed with technology. This combination was unprecedented in any individual in history, Keegan argues, and it made Hitler so dangerous.

The truth is, Hitler merely echoed Frederick the Great and Bismarck in the first two mentioned attributes. As for his obsession with technology, it was precisely Hitler's poor imagination and ignorance about science which prevented Germany, the world's leader in theoretical physics at that time, from developing the atomic bomb. He placed little faith in atomic physics, because in his limited mind this is associated with "Jewish physics." His interest in technical innovations in weaponry was neutralized by his impatience, his demand for instant results. Americans took four years to make the bomb, and even that would have been too long for Hitler. (Of course, given Germany's far more limited resources, they would have taken much longer even if maximum effort had been made - which wasn't, thanks to Hitler.) I'm not impressed by this so-called unique combination in Hitler. In his ruthlessness to civilians he merely resembles ancient tyrants; in his lack of restraints, he recalls Napoleon. Hitler was an orator, but so were many others, including FDR and Churchill. He had charisma, but that's hardly unique - Mussolini also had charisma.

Hitler was only so dangerous and so destructive because he led a highly organized and highly industrial state, not because there was anything special about Hitler. Had Russia started World War II, Keegan would probably have said the same thing about Stalin. Germany's destructive potential, not Hitler's, made the difference. I believe the great man theory of history, popularized by Carlyle, is at least half true. So Hitler's personality counted for a lot. But so do the personalities of many other war lords. As I scan the pages of history from prehistoric times in both the East and the West, I fail to see Hitler as extraordinary. He was a mediocrity with a few very eccentric traits, that's all.

I need hardly add that this so-called unique combination - warrior ethics, technology obsession, war and politics as two sides of the same coin - was the very secret to the Mongols' success. Genghis Khan and his successors lived and died by conquests, so the distinction between war and politics was not something they could have understood. As for the warrior class superiority, the entire Mongol society was one warrior class who treated sedentary subjects like the Chinese with contempt. And the Mongols certainly were quick to adopt new technologies: they used Chinese engineers when besieging Middle Eastern fortresses, and they picked up what they learned fighting in Arabia and applied it to their conquest of China. So there is really nothing new about Hitler. Rather than being the first conqueror who combined these three characteristics, Hitler was actually the last. That he was no doubt the most destructive of them is due to modern science and technology, not to the man himself. Hitler could have been far more dangerous than he was had he not been so stupid.

This is not the only point on which I find myself in disagreement with Keegan, but it so galls me that I feel I must put him right.

Rating:
Summary: Not bad narrative, questionable analysis
Review: I like this book because it is comprehensive and wide-ranging in coverage, especially on warfare in the West. I don't always agree with Keegan, however. On one point, for example, Hitler, I disagree. Keegan thinks Hitler is unique in history, for three reasons: he used wars for political means, he believed in the warrior class superiority, and he was obsessed with technology. This combination was unprecedented in any individual in history, Keegan argues, and it made Hitler so dangerous.

The truth is, Hitler merely echoed Frederick the Great and Bismarck in the first two mentioned attributes. As for his obsession with technology, it was precisely Hitler's poor imagination and ignorance about science which prevented Germany, the world's leader in theoretical physics at that time, from developing the atomic bomb. I'm not impressed by this so-called unique combination in Hitler. In his ruthlessness to civilians he merely resembles ancient tyrants; in his lack of restraints, he recalls Napoleon. Hitler was an orator, but so were many others, including FDR and Churchill. He had charisma, but that's hardly unique - Mussolini also had charisma.

Hitler was only so dangerous and so destructive because he led a highly organized and highly industrial state, not because there was anything special about Hitler. Had Russia started World War II, Keegan would probably have said the same thing about Stalin. Germany's destructive potential, not Hitler's, made the difference. I believe the great man theory of history, popularized by Carlyle, is at least half true. So Hitler's personality counted for a lot. But so do the personalities of many other war lords. As I scan the pages of history from prehistoric times in both the East and the West, I fail to see Hitler as extraordinary. He was a mediocrity with a few very unusual traits, that's all.

I need hardly add that this so-called unique combination - warrior ethics, technology obsession, war and politics as two sides of the same coin - was the very secret to the Mongols' success. Genghis Khan and his successors lived and died by conquests, so the distinction between war and politics was not something they could have understood. As for the warrior class superiority, the entire Mongol society was one warrior class who treated sedentary subjects like the Chinese with contempt. And the Mongols certainly were quick to adopt new technologies: they used Chinese engineers when besieging Middle Eastern fortresses, and they picked up what they learned fighting in Arabia and applied it to their conquest of China. So there is really nothing new about Hitler. Rather than being the first conqueror who combined these three characteristics, Hitler was actually the last. That he was no doubt the most destructive of them is due to modern science and technology, not to the man himself. Hitler could have been far more dangerous than he was had he not been so stupid.

This is not the only point on which I find myself in disagreement with Keegan, but it so galls me that I feel I must put him right.

Rating:
Summary: Made a History Buff of me
Review: I've never understood why the Military History section in book stores was so large, but in this book Keegan has demonstrated why. This book is a great introduction to History.
As I'm not a history scholar (yet) I think the best thing for me to recommend this book on is it's wonderful literary writing style. Keegan's voice, even in print, is decidedly British and that takes a little adjusting to. However, once you've aclimated to that you really start to enjoy how he crafts each sentence. I found myself underlining passages not just for content but also for their turn of phrase.

Rating:
Summary: Warfare History Muddle
Review: In his "History of Warfare," John Keegan does not match the mastery that Victor Hanson displays in "Carnage and Culture." Keegan does not convincingly demonstrate that military superiority mirrors larger social, economical, political and cultural practices, which have little relevance to the art and science of warfare. Keegan is not convincing when he attempts to prove Carl von Clausewitz wrong that war is not the continuation of politics by other means. Although Keegan's analysis is sometimes interesting, it is mainly anecdotic and bogged down in detail that fails to capture the target audience.

Rating:
Summary: breathtaking in scope, complexity and reach
Review: John Keegan's "A history of warfare" is an ambitious undertaking striving to analyze more then 5000 years of recorded history of warfare. Keegan starts with an overview of "a primitive warfare", represented by both surviving tribal cultures and ancient Middle East and Mediterranean peoples. This kind of warfare (and also ancient Chinese) is characterized by ritualistic battles of champions, hesitancy and desire to avoid direct conflict. This goes in direct contradiction with the modern Western ways of war; started by invention of pitched battle by classical Greeks, perpetuated through Roman times, inherited by Barbarian successors of Roman Empire, and ultimately developed into the concept of total war, which brought us the tragedies of the century just passed.

Keegan's theory is an antithesis of Clausewitz's thesis of "war as continuation of politics". He claims that the latter view is both restrictive and not really applicable to any period of history safe for a century after the dearth of Clausewitz (which nonetheless brought us 2 World Wars). Keegan points out that was is continuation of culture, genetics, politics, geography, and is ultimately both the reflection and the result of the human condition. In this, as in his other books, Keegan strikes a melancholy note that the humankind is both cursed and blessed by war, and as warfare grows to become total (or Clausewitz's) is looses all the redeeming qualities of the battles of the old and becomes a senseless expand of human suffering.

Keegan's style of presentation is clear and precise. Althought the book covers more then 5000 years of development of warfare across all major world cultures, people with little background in that history will find his arguments well understood.

Rating:
Summary: How warfare has been practised through the centuries
Review: Like the best of Keegan's books, A History of Warfare starts with an overarching theme (Clausewitz's assertion that war is politics by another means) and then proceeds to frame his description of warfare from pre-history to present day. Those that see this book merely as a defutation of Clausewitz ignore the meat of the book, which is a smooth and lucid description of (past and current) methods and philosophy of warmaking.

Most interesting is probably the notion that the western (originally Greco-Roman) ideal of decisive battle is an abberation. In fact, natural (primitive) war involves many safeguards and rituals to prevent high casualties. That is not to say that conquest is not possible in primitive war - Aztecs, Monguls, and Turks all managed to set themselves up as permanent rulers in conquered lands. However, casualties are light and there is no shame in retreat in this type of warfare. Keegan then proceeds over ground well-travelled by military historians - how the evolution of European power has led to Western military hegemony since the 17th century. For my money, Hanson's Carnage and Culture (from which Keegan quotes) is a more interesting and provocative read, but Keegan is convincing and fresh in his slant on the same topic.

The only negative aspect of the book, for me, is the theme - that of debunking Clausewitzian theory. It seems to me that, in fact, Keegan has proven (not disproven, as he claims) that Clausewitz's basic assertion, "War is politics by other means" is true. It feels like Keegan is bending the definitions of war and politics to serve his philosophy, and that a Clausewitz apologist could fudge definitions of war and politics to re-prove Clausewitz's assertions. For example, is not the Aztec method of warfare - emphasising the capture of prisoners to be later used in ritual sacrifice - entirely consistent with advancing their theological political system, which requires pacifying their gods with such sacrifices? Granted, Keegan does use many more examples and details to show that warfare is only Clausewitzian if the people prosecuting the war (i.e. WWI) believe it. Natural warfare is not, and warfare in the age of nuclear weapons cannot be if human civilisation is to survive.