A War Like No Other: How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War (Hardcover)

by Victor Davis Hanson (Author)
Key Phrases: trireme warfare, hoplite battle, hop lites, Peloponnesian War, Ionian War, World War (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Hanson (Warfare and Agriculture in Classical Greece, etc.) presents an elegant, lucidly written analysis of the 27-year civil war, a "colossal absurdity," that ended in Athens's 5th-century B.C. loss to Sparta and the depletion of centuries of material and intellectual wealth. Hanson deftly chronicles these destructive decades, from the conflict's roots (e.g., the fundamental mutual suspicion between Athens and Sparta) to its legacy (the evolution of the nature of war to something "more deadly, amorphous, and concerned with the ends rather than the ethical means"). Hanson considers the war's economic aspects and the ruinous plague that struck Athens before delving into his discussion of warfare. He offers a tour de force analysis of hoplite (or infantry) combat, guerrilla tactics, siege operations and sea battles in the Aegean. Though landlocked Sparta ultimately brought down Athens's once-great naval fleet and replaced democracy with oligarchy by 404 B.C., Hanson complicates the received notion of a lost Hellenic Golden Age. Throughout this trenchant military and cultural history, he draws parallels between the Peloponnesian War and modern-day conflicts from WWII to the Cold War and Vietnam. Across the centuries, these are lessons worth remembering. (Oct.)
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From The Washington Post
Inevitably, we see the Peloponnesian War through the eyes and truisms of one man. The narrative he left behind is replete with oracular insights that have supplied fodder for centuries of academic lectures: "The evils inflicted by the gods ought to be borne with patient resignation and the evils inflicted by enemies with manly fortitude." "No state can possibly preserve itself free unless it be a match for neighboring powers." "For so remarkably perverse is the nature of man that he despises whoever courts him and admires whoever will not bend before him." Proverbial nuggets like these, at once both prescient and commonsensical, threaten to upstage all the carnage of that war.

These axioms, of course, come courtesy of Thucydides, the Athenian historian who (one would have thought) wrote the last word on the struggle. The Peloponnesian War -- that chain of bloody campaigns between the Athenians and the Spartans that gripped mainland Greece and beyond between 431 and 404 B.C. and seemed to risk destroying for all time so much that we think of as uniquely Greek, such as philosophical dialogues, wine parties and democracy -- bequeathed myriad benefits to students of history, not the least of which are those time-honored tips on both strategy and prudence. But time has sanitized the war for us. Only with effort do we see that this war arose not from the mist of Homeric legend but from the smoke of real battlefields where real men -- and not a few women and children -- were butchered with methods ever more malevolent and efficient. Massacre moved in those days from an art form to a science. If history ever gave us a war to end all wars, this should have been the one.

A War Like No Other can be read as an elaborate excursus on the work of Thucydides, performed by Victor Davis Hanson, a former professor of classics who has made himself one of our premier military historians. Hanson might fairly be accused of overproduction -- still in his prime, he has authored or co-authored 15 other books -- but this study demonstrates the care of an avid, meticulous scholar whose learning can be worn lightly because it's so assured. He has also become a formidable journalist in recent years, which has prompted him to produce prose that is starkly appealing, direct and accessible to the common, curious reader.

Hanson chronicles the "thousands of ordinary Greeks who were slaughtered for nearly three decades for the designs of fickle men, shifting alliances, and contradictory causes," and he explores the methods used to conduct the war over time, which makes the book not only a rapid read but also a handy reference for browsing. Hanson is at his best when wielding details (the widths of various pieces of armor, for instance). He economically traces the roots of enmity between Athens and Sparta reaching back at least 50 years before hostilities commenced in the days of Pericles, the legendary Athenian leader. We discover how land forces complemented or competed with trireme ships, how hoplites (heavily armored infantrymen) were used and ill-used, how craftily built walls led to the siege war that helped to draw out the conflict for almost 30 years. He is especially sound on the role of raw terror in war -- the festering fear of noncombatants as well as the heart-stopping fright experienced by those on the battlefront. He examines the Great Plague of 430 and shows how its debilitating effects cropped up in the literature of subsequent times. In other words, he gives us the context that Thucydides could not.

By the time we get to the shank end of the war, with the Athenian debacle on Sicily between 415 and 413 -- painful reading, whether in Thucydides or Hanson -- we have trudged a long way in the footsteps of cruel, unforgiving armies and their leaders, men like Alcibiades, Nicias, Gylippus, Cleon and Lysander. In the end, Hanson's is not a rosy view of the glory that was Greece; instead, he has produced a searing look at "the creative talent for killing" that marked the Greeks at their bravest and most heartless. After wading through the swamp of such devastation, one yearns for a sip of wine and a spot of Plato to redeem these people.

Hanson performs the difficult feat of not talking down to readers while still presuming no prior knowledge of the war. Although an understanding of Greek history of the 5th and 4th centuries B.C. will certainly quicken one's pace, Hanson provides helpful appendices for the uninitiated or the rusty, identifying key terms, places and characters. His copious notes, written to inform and not to impress, will also fill in many gaps.

Hanson steadfastly aligns himself with generations of historians who believe that, while no two events are exactly alike, the past nevertheless has lessons to teach. Parallels with later wars come trippingly off his pen, though never without support. Outside of his book-lined study, Hanson does believe in what he sees as righteous causes, including the current war in Iraq. But there's nothing of the brass band about him. Where fighting and killing are at issue, no one is more unsparingly, unromantically frank. Once all the history and historiography have been set aside, we're left with the sobering words -- and one more axiom -- of the great philosopher Heraclitus: "War is the father of us all."

Reviewed by Tracy Lee Simmons
Copyright 2006, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 416 pages
• Publisher: Random House (October 4, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1400060958
• ISBN-13: 978-1400060955
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (56 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #296,689 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

104 of 114 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A history like no other., October 13, 2005

By	R. Klappenbach (Chevy Chase, MD) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Dr. Hanson has taken this well studied war and approached it from a a very interesting perspective. Rather than the standard chronologic retelling (done recently and well by Donald Kagan), Hanson delves into the facets of the conflict such as ships, seiges, horses etc. to craft a readable and stimulating exegesis of the twenty-seven year bloodbath. I say readable because his writing is fluid and almost conversational. You almost feel as though your in a lecture hall. My only criticism (which doesn't cost the book a star) refers to the quality of the maps ...they don't seem to add very much to the text other than simply showing where the various cities or islands are located. Personally, I prefer the tactical maps and would have liked to see more of them, especially for episode such as Mantinea , Delium, and the late naval battles. That aside, this was a wonderful experience. I hope Dr. Hanson will someday do the same for the Punic or other Roman wars.

98 of 111 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A War Like No Other is an Illuminating Study of ancient Greek warfare, November 10, 2005

By	C. M Mills "Michael Mills" (Knoxville Tennessee) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Victor David Hanson is the famous classicist who has soared to the top of the best seller non-fiction charts with outstanding
historical works! I have never read a Hanson work without being informed about the way war in all its nefarious aspects has influenced the course of Western civilization from the Greeks to the present day of conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In this new seminal work Dr. Hanson provides a modern examination of the Peloponessian war (the first major Civil War in World History) between democratic and empire expanding Athens in Attica and the militaristic oligarchic society of Sparta in
southern Greece. Throughout these pages the author quotes the classical writer Thucydides whose book on the Peloponessian War
fought in the 5th ca. B.C. is told from the perspective of an Athenian general officer. Thucydides was skeptical of human nature and critical of warfare so he is still pertinent today!
Instead of a blow by blow account of the horrific lengthy war the author focuses on the major factors in the conflict with
chapters devoted to such subjects as:
Walls-the importance of siege warfare
Horses-how mounted Syracuse calvary forces destroyed the Athenian invaders on Sicily.
Plague-a brilliant discussion of how plague ravaged Athens during the war.
Ships-the crucial importance of sea power chronicling how landlocked Sparta developed a powerful naval force which defeated the vaunted Athenian navy and won the war.
Land-how crop destruction and fire destroyed the lives of many
bucolic farmers.
Throughout his writing Hanson wants us to see how devasting is warfare to the common soldier/civilian drawn into the horrific
maelstrom of war. Hanson does not glorify war but like General William Sherman manifestly makes evident the fact that war is
hell.
In these pages you will meet such men as Pericles; explore the
building, manning and fighting done on Greek warships called
triremes; understand ancient economies and witness brutality in
the several slaughters of this ancient war.
Any educated reader will find insights and parallels to modern warfare in these many pages.
This book like all of Dr. Hanson's outstanding historical
works is highly recommended!

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Democracy can lose , November 13, 2005

By	Shalom Freedman "Shalom Freedman" (Jerusalem,Israel) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)

Hanson is one of the most readable military- political writers.. He is able to see the whole picture and thus to relate what he sees with a special kind of clarity. In an interview he gave to FrontPageCom. he spoke about a certain parallel between Athens of that time, and the United States of today. In both places it is severe domestic criticism that undermines seriously the war effort. It seems to me that Hanson is very much concerned about the precedent of Democracy losing. He believes that a democratic nation must have a strategy for winning the war, and not for simply carrying it on indefinitely.
I suspect however that the great enjoyment of this book does not relate to the parallels between past and present, but rather to the dramatic, tragic story of the Pelopennesian War as analyzed in this work.

Because of his depth of knowledge, enthusiasm for his subject the parallels and implications he draws from the Athens-Sparta war to other wars, are by and large convincing.
It seems to me that if there is one book President Bush should be reading these days. It is this one.