Author: Barry Strauss
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0743274539
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 320
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Book Description
On a late September day in 480 B.C., Greek warships faced an invading Persian armada in the narrow Salamis Straits in the most important naval battle of the ancient world. Overwhelmingly outnumbered by the enemy, the Greeks triumphed through a combination of strategy and deception. More than two millennia after it occurred, the clash between the Greeks and Persians at Salamis remains one of the most tactically brilliant battles ever fought. The Greek victory changed the course of western history -- halting the advance of the Persian Empire and setting the stage for the Golden Age of Athens. In this dramatic new narrative account, historian and classicist Barry Strauss brings this landmark battle to life. He introduces us to the unforgettable characters whose decisions altered history: Themistocles, Athens' great leader (and admiral of its fleet), who devised the ingenious strategy that effectively destroyed the Persian navy in one day; Xerxes, the Persian king who fought bravely but who ultimately did not understand the sea; Aeschylus, the playwright who served in the battle and later wrote about it; and Artemisia, the only woman commander known from antiquity, who turned defeat into personal triumph. Filled with the sights, sounds, and scent of battle, The Battle of Salamis is a stirring work of history.
Author: Victor Davis Hanson
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 0307425185
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 546
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Book Description
Examining nine landmark battles from ancient to modern times--from Salamis, where outnumbered Greeks devastated the slave army of Xerxes, to Cortes’s conquest of Mexico to the Tet offensive--Victor Davis Hanson explains why the armies of the West have been the most lethal and effective of any fighting forces in the world. Looking beyond popular explanations such as geography or superior technology, Hanson argues that it is in fact Western culture and values–the tradition of dissent, the value placed on inventiveness and adaptation, the concept of citizenship–which have consistently produced superior arms and soldiers. Offering riveting battle narratives and a balanced perspective that avoids simple triumphalism, Carnage and Culture demonstrates how armies cannot be separated from the cultures that produce them and explains why an army produced by a free culture will always have the advantage.
Author: Victor Davis Hanson
Publisher: Faber & Faber
ISBN: 9780571216406
Category : Battles
Languages : en
Pages : 492
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Book Description
'Why The West Has Won' provides a history of the rise to dominance of the West, exploring the links between cultural values and military success.
Author: Victor Davis Hanson
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
ISBN: 0812969707
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 418
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Book Description
One of our most provocative military historians, Victor Davis Hanson has given us painstakingly researched and pathbreaking accounts of wars ranging from classical antiquity to the twenty-first century. Now he juxtaposes an ancient conflict with our most urgent modern concerns to create his most engrossing work to date, A War Like No Other. Over the course of a generation, the Hellenic city-states of Athens and Sparta fought a bloody conflict that resulted in the collapse of Athens and the end of its golden age. Thucydides wrote the standard history of the Peloponnesian War, which has given readers throughout the ages a vivid and authoritative narrative. But Hanson offers readers something new: a complete chronological account that reflects the political background of the time, the strategic thinking of the combatants, the misery of battle in multifaceted theaters, and important insight into how these events echo in the present. Hanson compellingly portrays the ways Athens and Sparta fought on land and sea, in city and countryside, and details their employment of the full scope of conventional and nonconventional tactics, from sieges to targeted assassinations, torture, and terrorism. He also assesses the crucial roles played by warriors such as Pericles and Lysander, artists, among them Aristophanes, and thinkers including Sophocles and Plato. Hanson’s perceptive analysis of events and personalities raises many thought-provoking questions: Were Athens and Sparta like America and Russia, two superpowers battling to the death? Is the Peloponnesian War echoed in the endless, frustrating conflicts of Vietnam, Northern Ireland, and the current Middle East? Or was it more like America’s own Civil War, a brutal rift that rent the fabric of a glorious society, or even this century’s “red state—blue state” schism between liberals and conservatives, a cultural war that manifestly controls military policies? Hanson daringly brings the facts to life and unearths the often surprising ways in which the past informs the present. Brilliantly researched, dynamically written, A War Like No Other is like no other history of this important war.
Author: Victor Davis Hanson
Publisher: Encounter Books
ISBN: 1893554260
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 362
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Book Description
With advice and informative readings of the great Greek texts, this title shows how we might save classics and the Greeks. It is suitable for those who agree that knowledge of classics acquaints us with the beauty and perils of our own culture.
Author: Stephen P. Kershaw
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1639362355
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 309
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Book Description
The year 2022 marks 2,500 years since Athens, the birthplace of democracy, fought off the mighty Persian Empire. This is the story of the three epic battles—Marathon, Thermopylae and Salamis—that saved democracy, forever altering the history of Europe and the West. In 2022 it will be 2,500 years since the final defeat of the invasion of Greece by Xerxes, the Persian king. This astonishing clash between East and West still has resonances in modern history—and has left us with tales of heroic resistance in the face of seemingly hopeless odds. The Harvest of War makes use of recent archaeological and geological discoveries in this thrilling and timely retelling of the story, originally told by Herodotus, the Father of History. In 499 BC, when the rich, sophisticated Greek communities of Ionia on the western coast of modern Turkey rebel from their Persian overlord Darius I, Athens sends ships to help them. Darius crushes the Greeks in a huge sea battle near Miletus and then invades Greece. Standing alone against the powerful Persian army, the soldiers of Athens' newly democratic state—a system which they have invented—unexpectedly repel Darius's forces on the planes of Marathon. After their victory, the Athenians strike a rich vein of silver in their state-owned mining district, and decide to spend the windfall on building a fleet of state-of-the-art warships. Persia wants revenge. The next Persian king, Xerxes, assembles a vast multinational force, constructs a bridge of boats across the Hellespont, digs a canal through the Mount Athos peninsula, and bears down on Greece. Trusting in their "wooden walls," the Athenians station their ships at Artemisium, where they and the weather prevent the Persians landing forces in the rear of the land forces under the Spartan King Leonidas at the nearby pass of Thermopylae. Xerxes's assault is a disastrous failure, until a traitor shows him a mountain track that leads behind the Greeks. Leonidas dismisses the Greek troops, but remains in the pass with his 300 Spartan warriors where they are overwhelmed in an heroic last stand. Athens is sacked by the Persians. Democracy is hanging by a thread. But the Athenians convince the Greek allies to fight on in the narrow waters by the island of Salamis. Despite the heroism of the Persian female commander Artemisia, the Persian fleet is destroyed. The Harvest of War concludes by exploring the ideas that the decisive battles of Marathon, Thermopylae, and Salamis mark the beginnings of Western civilization itself—and that Greece became the bulwark of the West—representing the values of peace, freedom, and democracy in a region historically ravaged by instability and war.
Author: Victor Davis Hanson
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520921755
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 300
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Book Description
The ancient Greeks were for the most part a rural, not an urban, society. And for much of the Classical period, war was more common than peace. Almost all accounts of ancient history assume that farming and fighting were critical events in the lives of the citizenry. Yet never before have we had a comprehensive modern study of the relationship between agriculture and warfare in the Greek world. In this completely revised edition of Warfare and Agriculture in Classical Greece, Victor Davis Hanson provides a systematic review of Greek agriculture and warfare and describes the relationship between these two important aspects of life in ancient communities. With careful attention to agronomic as well as military details, this well-written, thoroughly researched study reveals the remarkable resilience of those farmland communities. In the past, scholars have assumed that the agricultural infrastructure of ancient society was often ruined by attack, as, for example, Athens was relegated to poverty in the aftermath of the Persian and later Peloponnesian invasions. Hanson's study shows, however, that in reality attacks on agriculture rarely resulted in famines or permanent agrarian depression. Trees and vines are hard to destroy, and grainfields are only briefly vulnerable to torching. In addition, ancient armies were rather inefficient systematic ravagers and instead used other tactics, such as occupying their enemies' farms to incite infantry battle. Warfare and Agriculture in Classical Greece suggests that for all ancient societies, rural depression and desolation came about from more subtle phenomena—taxes, changes in political and social structure, and new cultural values—rather than from destructive warfare.
Author: John R. Hale
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 9780670020805
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 436
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Book Description
Presents a history of the epic battles, the indomitable ships, and the men--from extraordinary leaders to seductive rogues--who established Athens' supremacy, taking readers on a tour of the far-flung expeditions and detailing the legacy of a forgotten maritime empire.
Author: Victor Davis Hanson
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 160819163X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 316
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Book Description
Moving portraits of five commanders whose dynamic leadership styles changed the course of warfare and history trace the stories of Themistocles, Belisarius, William Tecumseh Sherman, Matthew Ridgway and David Petraeus, evaluating their pivotal military roles and the controversies that marked their careers.
Author: Albin Lesky
Publisher: Hackett Publishing
ISBN: 9780872203501
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 952
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Book Description
"First published as Geschichte der Griechischen Literatur by Francke Verlag, Bern"--T.p. verso.
