Customer Reviews

Ancient Warfare: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions)

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Victor Davis Hanson has written several books, "The Western Way of War," "Carnage & Culture," "An Autumn of War," and others, positing a specific mindset and a historical tradition for a "Western Way of War." Sidebottom doesn't agree, and without ever mentioning Hanson's name, engages in an extended rebuttal of Hanson which both misses the point and spends a lot of time giving highly subjective "art critic" style descriptions of ancient artwork depicting warfare. Hanson sets forth a constellation of factors which he says makes up the "Western Way of War." Sidebottom deals only with the factors of heavy infantry and decisive battle. You can't refute a complex theory by rebutting only one or two components of that theory. You should at least try to deal with all of the components.

Ever since reading about the Battle of Thermopylae as a child, I have had an interest in antiquity, and I bought this book to learn a little about ancient warfare. I learned a little about ancient warfare and a lot about the author's preconceptions. If you want to learn more about the nuts and bolts of ancient warfare, there are much better books out there (Hanson's "The Western Way of War," for example, or F.E. Adcock's "The Greek and Macedonian Art of War"). If you want a book with a theory-to-fact ration of 3 to 1, this is the book for your.

First, let me say up front, this is a very good overview of the context of Ancient Warfare, but it falls more into the realm of the "new military" history vice the traditional descriptions of battles, tactics, or weapons. In fact of the book's seven chapters only two are related to warfare: Chapter Five is on strategy and Six on "Fighting." There is nothing wrong with this; in fact I believe it is the book's strength. If I were just beginning research into ancient warfare I would want to begin with this book before moving on to more focused studies. Given the limitations placed on the subject by the concept of the "Very Short Introduction" series, Sidebottom does a good job of presenting important factors in society that impacted war and in summarizing some of the current arguments in the field, such as whether or not "strategy" existed in the ancient period or the concept of a western way of war. The book's strength is its discussions on the idea of a western way of war, and its weaknesses are its focus on Rome and Greece, with peripheral discussions of their enemies, and a disjointed chapter on strategy.

'Very Short Introduction' is a very good name for this series. This book looks at 'ancient' (almost entirely Classical and especially Roman) warfare from a number of points of view, including the roles of gender, religion, and the individual in war. I bought this book shortly after I first took an interest in ancient military history about two years ago, and it suited its purpose as an introduction very well.

This is not a conventional military history. Readers interested in detailed accounts of military techniques, major campaigns, and battles will be disappointed. Sidebottom provides a broad discussion of the role of war in Classical Greece and Rome, how war was conceived by the Greeks and Romans, the experience of war, and even some historiography. Sidebottom draws also on a broad variety of sources, including the traditional literary sources, epigraphy, and artistic depictions of warfare. Well written and illustrated, this is a good introduction to warfare as a part of classical history as opposed to the classical world as part of military history. There is an excellent bibliography.
As a prior reviewer comments, Sidebottom does deal with the concept of the "Western Way of War" though more with how the Greeks and Romans thought of their way of making war than Victor Hansen Davis' theory. There is some appropriate criticism of Hansen Davis' ideas though readers interested in a thorough critique of Hansen Davis' theory should read John Lynn's very good book Battle.