Carnage and Culture: Landmark Battles in the Rise of Western Power (Hardcover)

~ Victor Hanson (Author) "EVEN THE PLIGHT of enterprising killers can tell us something..." (more)
Key Phrases: civic militarism, civilian audit, military dynamism, North Vietnamese, Rorke's Drift, United States (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Many theories have been offered regarding why Western culture has spread so successfully across the world, with arguments ranging from genetics to superior technology to the creation of enlightened economic, moral, and political systems. In Carnage and Culture, military historian Victor Hanson takes all of these factors into account in making a bold, and sure to be controversial, argument: Westerners are more effective killers. Focusing specifically on military power rather than the nature of Western civilization in general, Hanson views war as the ultimate reflection of a society's character: "There is…a cultural crystallization in battle, in which the insidious and more subtle institutions that heretofore are murky and undefined became stark and unforgiving in the finality of organized killing."

Though technological advances and superior weapons have certainly played a role in Western military dominance, Hanson posits that cultural distinctions are the most significant factors. By bringing personal freedom, discipline, and organization to the battlefield, powerful "marching democracies" were more apt to defeat non-Western nations hampered by unstable governments, limited funding, and intolerance of open discussion. These crucial differences often ensured victory even against long odds. Greek armies, for instance, who elected their own generals and freely debated strategy were able to win wars even when far outnumbered and deep within enemy territory. Hanson further argues that granting warriors control of their own destinies results in the kind of glorification of horrific hand-to-hand combat necessary for true domination.

The nine battles Hanson examines include the Greek naval victory against the Persians at Salamis in 480 B.C., Cortes's march on Mexico City in 1521, the battle of Midway in 1942, and the 1968 Tet Offensive in Vietnam. In the book's fascinating final chapter, he then looks forward and ponders the consequences of a complete cultural victory, challenging the widespread belief that democratic nations do not wage war against one another: "We may well be all Westerners in the millennium to come, and that could be a very dangerous thing indeed," he writes. It seems the West will always seek an enemy, even if it must come from within. --Shawn Carkonen

From Publishers Weekly

"The Western way of war is so lethal precisely because it is so amoral shackled rarely by concerns of ritual, tradition, religion, or ethics, by anything other than military necessity." Ranging from Salamis in 480 B.C. to the Tet offensive in Vietnam, Hanson, a California State at Fresno classics professor, expands the scope of his The Western Way of War: Infantry Battle in Classical Greece, offering a provocative look at occidental aggression as illustrated by nine paradigmatic battles between Western and non-Western armies. Hanson sheds the overly romanticized view of battles as nationalist or ethnic honorifics and vividly portrays the deadly killing machines Western powers evolved for the destruction of non-Western opponents. Throughout, Hanson stresses the technology based lethality of Western warfare, and the role of individual initiative as opposed to the more collectivist strategies of the Persians, Carthaginians, Arabs, Turks, Aztecs, Zulus, Japanese and Vietnamese opponents who get a chapter apiece. The single Western defeat chronicled in these pages, of the Romans in Cannae in 216 B.C., shows a victorious Hannibal unable to capitalize on his win. (The idea of the citizen/soldier, the role of civic militarism and the republican ideals of Rome seem to be the reasons why not.) A number of Hanson's conclusions will engender debate, such as his claim that America won in Vietnam, but failed to recognize it, as well as the larger claim that "free markets, free elections, and free speech" have led directly to superior forces. The book's last few chapters are fairly driven by that idea, which, along with precise, forceful writing, sets it apart from the season's secondary-sourced, battle-based military histories. (Aug.)Forecast: Hanson's direct, literate style and his evenhandedness should appeal to the liberalist middle of the left and right alike. By isolating the ingredients of military success via elaborate examples, the book can potentially draw on two separate military-history readerships: those looking for theory and those for action.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 512 pages
• Publisher: Doubleday; 1 edition (August 14, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385500521
• ISBN-13: 978-0385500524
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.4 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (139 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #596,248 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

197 of 214 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars For the sophisticated student of warfare, December 19, 2001

By	Newt Gingrich (Washington, DC United States) - See all my reviews ("THE")

This is a remarkable book with profound implications. Hanson's argument about culture and warfare should be read with Hernando de Soto's The Mystery of Capitalism that argues that prosperity is also a function of culture and legality. The two books on very different topics actually make the same point and create a new analytical framework for understanding why some countries develop and become prosperous and powerful and others do not.

Hanson makes the case that western military capabilities (currently on display in Afghanistan) are a function of culture going back to the rise of the Greek city-states. He asserts that the combination of a polity in which the warriors vote on going to war in which they will serve (in effect the property owning voters were the heart of the Greek Phalanx so they were voting to put themselves at risk). They needed to have a short campaign between the planting and harvest seasons since the warrior-farmers had to both sustain the economy and the battle creating a style of war which involved short direct shock actions (the Greek phalanx so brilliantly portrayed in Pressfield's the Gates of Fire). This reliance on infantry combat by disciplined units in direct shock assault was compounded by the economics of Greek geography. Faced with the reality that in small valleys surrounded by mountains you could produce ten infantrymen for every cavalrymen because horses are far more expensive than humans, the Greeks really emphasized the development of high technology (long spear, short stabbing sword, big shield, very tough helmet) infantry combat with extremely disciplined teams.

Finally, Hanson asserts that the rule of law in the Greek city-state guaranteed every soldier a status and legal rights and protection which created a sense of stability and commitment unlike any non-western culture. It is the combination of voting and legality, which Hanson believes, combined to create such a powerful system of war.

Hanson argues that this style of war led to two major breakthroughs that have persisted in the west to this day.

First, the kind of courage required by a phalanx is a disciplined refusal to break. It is the opposite of the heroic courage of traditional warrior societies. In traditional warrior societies (including the Greeks of Homer's Iliad assaulting the Trojans with individual heroism in a pre-phalanx era) the warrior rushes forward individually to count coup (the native American model) or seize prisoners (the Aztec model) or simply kill enemies (the Gauls and Germans against the Romans). In the Greek phalanx and the Roman legion which grew from it the primary courage is the discipline of standing fast with your fellow soldiers and refusing to break even when overwhelmingly outnumbered (thus the British at Rorke's Drift when outnumber 35 to one never thought of breaking ranks and the American soldiers in Mogadishu never dreamed of an every man for themselves approach even when outnumbered by more than 100 to one).

Second, the direct action model of warfare creates a ruthlessness, a directness, and a constant search for the decisive battle, which Hanson argues, is peculiarly western. Thus in the second world war Marshall argued for the direct frontal assault on German occupied Europe as the correct search for the decisive battle.

Hanson asserts that other cultures emphasize deception, maneuver, indirect conflict, setting up symbolic fights but the western model is an overwhelming direct assault aimed at achieving decisive victory as quickly as possible and assuming that short term violence actually saves lives in the long run.

Hanson reasons that three other patterns have made the west increasingly dominant in warfare. First, the Greek rational approach to scientific reasoning that emphasized facts and a constant search for better answers. Second, the use of free markets and commercial activity to create production systems has simply out-produced and out-modernized competitors. Hanson notes that there are virtually no cases of westerners importing non-western military technology but endless examples of non-westerners importing western technology. Third, the pragmatic approach to problem solving from the Greek and Roman tradition means that when western militaries encounter new realities (the Aztecs, the military systems of the Japanese Navy, the Ottoman Navy) there was a speed of analysis and flexible experimentation that non-westerners could not match.

Hanson uses the battles of Salamis 480 B.C. (the Greeks defeat the Persians in a naval battle), Gaugemala 331 B.C. (Alexander's Greeks destroy the Persian Empire), Cannae 216 B.C. (the Romans are annihilated and respond by raising new armies to destroy Carthage), Poitiers 732 A.D. (French landed infantry defeats Muslim cavalry), Tenochtitlan 1520-1521 (a remarkably small number of Spanish conquer Mexico and destroy the Aztec empire), Lepanto 1571 (the Christian fleets destroy the Ottoman Navy and establish western naval supremacy in the Mediterranean), Rorke's Drift 1879 (a remarkably outnumbered British force defeats a Zulu Army), Midway 1942 ( in one improbable day the Americans destroy Japanese Carrier aviation and seize the initiative in the Pacific War), and Tet 1968 (despite stunningly false press coverage the American military decisively defeats the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese by developing better tactics and superior technology) in a magisterial sweep of military history to make his case.

This is a book any sophisticated student of war or any citizen concerned about the role of warfare in national survival would want to read.

117 of 126 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Timely But Controversial Book, January 1, 2002

By	William Holmes "semloh2287" (Portland, OR USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Hanson's "Carnage and Culture" is worth reading for its vigorous style as well as its thought-provoking thesis. Books about military history are often fairly dry, but Hanson writes clearly and in the active voice, perhaps unconciously emulating the Western military tactics he describes.

He argues that Western success on the battlefield is a cultural phenomenon, not just the result of good fortune in the allocation of resources or the serendipity of technology. Free nations produce leaders and soldiers who take the initiative. Citizens who are protected by law against arbitrary action feel free to "audit" battles and criticize soldiers, leading to improved strategy and tactics. Western military commands are heirarchical, but not unduly so, so that they adapt well to changing circumstances. The result is an approach to battle that has been evolving since the time of the ancient Greeks, and that now involves applying maximum disclipline and violence at the point of engagement in order to annihilate, not merely defeat, an opponent.

Hanson discusses a series of battles to illustrate the differences between the "Western" style of war and the practices of cultures that he deems to be "non-Western": Salamis (480 BC); Gaugamela (331 BC); Cannae (216 BC); Poitiers (732); Tenochtitlan (1520-21); Lepanto (1571); Rourke's Drift (1879); Midway (1942) and Tet (1968). Each of these struggles illustrates a Western preference for decisive battle that inflicts enormous and disproportionate casualties on the loser.

Throughout, Hanson is very careful to stress that the losers are brave, smart individuals--he is not a racist and goes out of his way to explain that, person for person, the citizens of the West are no better than their non-Western counterparts. He does, however, argue that Western culture, for better or worse, produces better results on the battlefield than non-Western culture does. This position is sure to be viewed as politically incorrect, but it is certainly worth pondering.

"Carnage and Culture" is particularly interesting in these troubled times. I began reading the book shortly after the September 11 attacks, and I have found it to be highly predictive of the American conduct of the war in Afghanistan, as well as America's relentless success in that war. The collapse of the Taliban that seems remarkable to media pundits and those untutored in the Western way of war looks almost inevitable to those who have read Hanson's work. A wounded republic, like Rome after its horrendous defeat at Cannae, is a determined and ruthless enemy. As the historian Ross Leckie wryly observed in "Hannibal": "The Romans were a thorough lot. Carthage is a memory."

Having said all this, Hanson's book leaves almost untouched some fairly important questions. If freedom and initiative are so critical to Western military success, how do we explain the performance of totalitarian Germany's military in the early years of World War II and its quick defeat of the French democracy in 1940? Why were the Soviets, who endured purges and arbitrary executions in the 1930s and throughout World War II, ultimately successful against the more "Westernized" Germans? I suspect that Hanson could offer cogent answers to these questions, but it puzzles me that he did not volunteer them in his book.

44 of 50 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Western World's Unrivaled Ability to Kill its Enemies, October 10, 2001

By	David Thomson "Second Rate Eric Hoffer Imitator" (Houston, TX USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Victor David Hanson superbly argues that "Western civilization has given mankind the only economic system that works, a rationalist
tradition that alone allows us material and technological progress, the sole political structure that ensures the freedom of the individual, a system of ethics and a religion that brings out the best in humankind---and the most lethal practice of arms conceivable." The author offers abundant evidence found in the historical documents of battles fought in ancient times until the present. Soldiers of Athens, Rome, and the United States, unlike their foes, enjoyed a great degree of freedom and true citizenship. Warriors were not always soldiers, but civilians called upon temporally to fight for their nation. "To live as you please" is a value taken very seriously. A sense of fairness and justice pervades the ranks of the Western soldier. Virginia Military Institute officer candidates, for instance, "are largely protected through a system of military justice from capricious punishment--and (also) accept that gratuitous violence on their part will be severely punished."

Embracing traditional methods solely to honor the ancients is alien to the Western mindset. Killing the messenger who brings forth bad news is the normal practice of the less free non-Western powers. Not so for those in authority within Western regimes. Individualism is highly cherished. Dissent and the questioning of past practices underpin the western military model. "A military command may steal secrets daily over the Internet, but if it cannot discuss those ideas openly with its civilian and military leadership, then there is no guarantee that such information will find its optimum application to ensure parity with the West," warns Hanson. This military historian's insights on how America defeated Japan during World War II is reason enough to justify the price of this magnificent volume.

Trained to remain in formation during battle, the Western soldier often defeated enemies physically and numerically stronger. Hanson points out that courage alone isn't sufficient. The ability and willingness to fight in an unrelenting disciplined and intelligent manner turned ordinary men into ferocious killing machines. The
barbarism and fearlessness of the Aztec warriors, American Indians, and the Zulus were ultimately no match for their Western opponents. "Carnage and Culture" is an indispensable book to read during our country's current trials and tribulations. It demands a prominent place on your personal bookshelf.