Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Excellent book on the orgins of western warfare
This is my second time through the book and it is still an excellent read and provides an engrossing account of the orgins of how warfare in the Greek world was waged and its impact throughout history. On that note I must disagree with George Delke Sr. that the Greeks were not the inventors of this type of warfare and that the Assryians were good at it (if they were the Greeks wouldn't have slaughtered them as often as they did).Dr. Hanson makes a thorough and thoughful analysis of the Greek hoplites and the way they fought. From the hoplight to the their commander no stone is left unturned. But while the main emphasis on the book itself is the hoplight and Greek warfare in general there is much more to it than just that. The Greek hoplights were not successful because of their bravery or for their numbers, the Assyrians were brave and they outnumbered the Greeks in all their battles, then why was it the hoplight armies were so successful against the Assyrians. It was because of their orginization and their training (this is why I disagreed with the previous reveiwer). This then is the underlying theme to the book, not the heroics of one man but the performance of the whole. The Greek structure of warfare will go on to conquer almost the whole ancient world under the hands of men like Alexander the Great, Scipio Africanus, Julius Ceasar, and the other great Roman generals of the ancient world. But the traditions of Greek warfare would go on to influence the later nations of the European world and from there the whole of the Western World. Using a plethora of sources from ancient authors, battles, archeology, and others the author has managed to write an excellent resource that is original, readable, enthralling, and most importantly is its credibility. This is a must have for any student of military history, both professional and layperson alike.
Rating: - Anything But Modern Warfare!
Victor Davis Hanson is by trade apparently both a California viniculturist and an academic scholar of classical Greek history. So John Keegan says in his introduction to this new edition of an established minor classic. The improbable combination of such disparate occupations has shaped his conception of ancient Greek warfare: he argues that the ritualistic hoplite battle formalized during the "golden period" of Greek antiquity was inextricably linked to the nature of Greek agriculture. To avoid devastating loss of food (particularly wine) production and desolation of invaluable land, the seemingly ceaseless wars between Greek city states and their various shifting alliances had to be short, rapidly decisive, and--necessarily as a result--brutally sanguineous. Greeks deliberately fought according to a set of mutually acknowledged rules that limited wartime injury to the participating infantrymen themselves, and kept intact the soil and farms from which they came. In his book Hanson takes us step by step through the violent clash of opposing Greek armies and reveals in remarkably technical detail just what was involved. Perhaps even more important, he recreates the personal experience of individual participants during such a battle. Following in the footsteps of many modern (post-World War II) historians who are more interested in the private soldier than the commanding general, he gives us a gritty sense of what it was like for Greek farmer soldiers to undergo combat in traditional phalanx formation. (Consequently, Steven Pressfield acknowleges that Hanson was one of the sources he referred to when writing his engrossing "Gates of Fire", a fictional treatment of the famous Battle of Thermopylae.) In this sense there is a firm connection between ancient and modern warfare: ultimately it was--and is--fought by men who must deal with their own personal fears of wounding, dismemberment, and death. This has not changed, and so long as there is still a human element to war, will not change. But Hanson takes a step beyond simple individual motivation; and in the closing pages of the book he discusses the implications of modern total warfare, where the ritualized, bloody (but still carefully limited) battle of ancient Greece has given way to the usually uncontrolled, all-destructive (rather than fundamentally conserving) combat of today. It makes for thoughtful, stimulating reading. (Those who find this subject matter interesting might find other Hanson books worth looking at. His more recent "Soul of Battle" devotes its first third to a discussion of war between Thebes and Sparta. "The Wars of the Ancient Greeks" is one volume of a slick series of popular histories which have John Keegan as their editor; aimed at the uninitiated general public, this title nonetheless is a good introduction to warfare in classical Greece.)
Rating: - Flawless Detail--Faulty Analysis
Hanson writes a vivid, realistic description of the horror of hoplite combat. He gives the reader an in-depth armchairview of agrarian city-state warfare. There is much to be learned from this book about battle with edged weapons.In the final chapter, however, when he tries to blame the horrors of modern total war on the psychology of the hoplite battle, he goes astray. As bloody and unpleasant as the hoplite battle was, it was really a system designed to limit non-combatant casualties. Only the soldiers on the chosen field of battle exposed themselves to injury while the city-states themselves suffered little behind their stout walls. Hoplite warfare was sort of like settling international disputes by means of a very bloody football game. This all changed when Hoplite met Immortal in the Persian Wars. In addition to learning that the Immortals were misnamed, The Greeks learned total war from the East. In this war for survival as a civilization, the Greeks began to look on battle as more than bloody and sometimes fatal sport. The bloodbath that began at Marathon continued through Thermopylae, Salamis, and Plataea, and the Greeks began to understand warmaking in terms of total war. Hanson overlooks this Persian "contribution" to the Western way of warmaking.
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