A War Like No Other

I just finished an enlightening journey through Victor Davis Hanson's A War Like No Other: How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War (Random House, 2005). Finally, a book that makes the war understandable. Really. I read the first 100 pages of Kagan's highly regarded one-volume work The Peloponnesian War (Viking, 2003), then gave up. The parties to the conflict all have three names, each has dozens of allies, the strategic aims of the whole affair are not immediately evident to the non-specialist, and the tactical goals of particular battles or skirmishes are even more obscure. It was like watching cricket: I know it's an athletic contest, but darned if I can figure out what they're doing running back and forth. Read A War Like No Other and you'll finally get it (the war, not cricket). Thank you, Mr. Hanson.

I won't attempt any sort of summary of the war: go read this, it has maps. What Hanson's book does is explain things like how hoplite infantry fought (eight ranks deep with lots of pushing but not that much dying); how lighter-armed auxiliaries became important (they were quicker and could catch and kill armor-burdened hoplites in the open field); how sieges worked before effective catapults (often they didn't); how triremes worked (there were three banks of rowers stacked on top of each other, and you didn't want to be on the bottom); the role of Alcibiades (he had his ups and downs); and how the themes of Greek drama and philosophy at Athens during and after the war incorporated the blunt and bloody experience of this war that wouldn't end. This would be a great Christmas present for the ex-military uncle or in-law in the family. Or you can always buy it and give it to someone else to give to you for Christmas (am I the only one who does this sort of thing?).

Here's a link to an excerpt from the first chapter at the publisher's page. And here's a link to the paperback edition at Amazon, just released this month.

Comments

[Dave]

I didn't throw in a Mo-app paragraph. If you need one, I suppose you can reflect on how the military dynamic unleashed by the Peloponnesian War culminated two generations later in Philip of Macedon and his son Alexander. Alexander swept across the Near East, smashing Persia, the arch-enemy of the Greek world and, conincidentally, the imperial overlord of Judea. This resulted in Greek culture and rule falling over Judea.

The mix of Jewish religion and Greek culture then dominates the intertestamental Israelite writings and sets the stage for the world of the New Testament and the early Church: Roman power, Greek culture, Jewish religion. All because Athens unwisely recalled Alcibiades from Sicily.

[Justin]

Thanks for the review, Dave. I watched an interesting Book TV show last fall featuring Hanson discussing the same book. It's on my list of books to read.