About this title: Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and military historian who has written on wars both ancient and modern. (He is also said to be a Washington insider and Bushcon.) In A WAR LIKE NO OTHER he tells the story of the long war between Athens and Sparta, which we know about primarily from the great historian Thucydides. Applying contemporary terms such as "superpower" to Athens and Sparta, Hanson highlights how issues such as imperialism, militarism, and the desire to spread democracy were key factors in the conflict. He also tells tales of intense battles, on land and sea, showing the great ...
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Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Random House Inc
Date Published: 2006-09-12
ISBN-13:9780812969702ISBN:0812969707
Description: NEW. Softcover. From an inventory that is 100% brand-new, 100% direct from the publishers' distribution channel. We carry NO pre-owned, NO remaindered. We pack in CARDBOARD to ensure the pristine quality is maintained. (Bubble-wrap alone is NOT sufficient to protect from USPS equipment. ) Guaranteed brand-NEW, protected with CARDBOARD, your satisfaction is guaranteed. BKLUVID: 9780812969702. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
Date Published: 2006
ISBN-13:9780812969702ISBN:0812969707
Description: New. Brand New! Buy with confidence-your satisfaction is guaranteed at B-Logistics! Due to the large scale of our operation, we do not have access to the specific contents/condition of our items. Please note that Expedited shipping is not available at this time. read more
Binding: Hardcover; First Printing
Publisher: Random House, New York
Date Published: 2005
ISBN-13:9781400060955ISBN:1400060958
Description: Very Good+ in Fine dust jacket. 1400060958. Date and small stars inked on front flyleaf by previous owner. Blind stamp on title page. Else binding and pages are clean. DJ is very clean.; 397 pages. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Random House
Date Published: 2005
ISBN-13:9781400060955ISBN:1400060958
Description: Good. Good: A copy that has been read, but remains in clean condition. All pages are intact, and the cover is intact (including dust cover, if applicable). The spine may show signs of wear. Pages can include limited notes and highlighting, and the copy can include "From the library of" labels. About Austin eBooks Austin eBooks is committed to providing each customer with the highest standard of customer service! We add inventory to our store daily, and guarantee order processing and shipment ... read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
Date Published: 2006-09-12
ISBN-13:9780812969702ISBN:0812969707
Description: Very Good in Very Good jacket. The front and back covers are slightly creased and torn. Satisfaction guaranteed. USPS tracking included at no additional charge. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Random House
Date Published: 2005-10-04
ISBN-13:9781400060955ISBN:1400060958
Description: Fair. Listed as acceptable only because dust jacket is missing. Hardcover has clean, unmarked pages and tight binding. Nice copy. FREE USPS tracking number. Thank you for choosing Premiere Books! read more
Edition: Reprint
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Random House Inc
Date Published: 2006
ISBN-13:9780812969702ISBN:0812969707
Description: New. Using his tremendous scholarship and literary skills, Victor Davis Hanson brings the devastating seven-year conflict between the Athenians and Spartans, known as the Peloponnesian War, back to absorbing life. 16-page photo insert. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Random House
Date Published: 2005-10-04
ISBN-13:9781400060955ISBN:1400060958
Description: Very Good. Clean crisp text with no marks or inscriptions. Dust jacket has light shelf wear. Three pages have a crease to top right corner. read more
Edition: First Edition
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Random House, Incorperated, New York, NY, U.S.A.
Date Published: 2005
ISBN-13:9781400060955ISBN:1400060958
Description: Good + in Very Good jacket. Brief summary of content available upon request by e-mail. read more
Description: Very good. 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 the Golden Age. Thucydides wrotethe standard history of the Peloponnesian War, but now Vi. read more
"Having enjoyed another book by Victor Davis Hanson, The Soul of Battle, I picked this one up when a copy was put up for sale at the Hayward, Wisconsin Public Library over the Memorial Day weekend. Since reading Thucydides freshman year at Grinnell College, the history of the Peloponnesian War has held interest. This account was no disappointment. Indeed, compared to others, it was original.
The originality of Hanson's book is that he doesn't summarize Thucydides and the Oxyrhinchos Historian. He assumes some background on the part of the reader and proceeds instead to detail the war in terms of its practice, focusing on its innovations. Thus one learns about siegecraft, hoplite battle, trireme tactics--precisely the kinds of details that Thucydides assumed his readership familiar with. Doing so, A War Like No Other serves as a useful adjunct to the normal high school or college reading assignment.
Beyond that, Hanson writes with an intention of exploring and exploding common misconceptions of the decades-long conflict between the ancient democratic imperialists of Athens and the oligarchical traditionalists of Sparta. One, of course, is the usual exaggeration of the goodness of Athens during its "golden age" from the defeat of Persia until at least the plague during the war. Although a radical democracy in ways quite different than ours, Athens was also, by the standards of its time, an imperialist superpower and bully, maintaining its far-flung commercial interests by means of tribute and an unmatched fleet. Sparta, however, while the bully of the Peloponnese, was the advocate of what today would be termed "national self-determination." A land power, it felt increasingly threatened by Athenian innovations and self-aggrandizing encroachments and became, with Thebes and Corinth, a leader of liberation movements throughout the Greek-speaking world extending from the Black Sea to Egypt to Asia Minor to Italy and Sicily. Of course, it wasn't as simple as that moralistic calculus might imply. Athens really did generally promote a kind of democracy in that its client poleis tended to favor egalitarianism while Sparta's notions of self-determination tended to mean oligarchical rule.
The irony of the war is (1) that innovative, proto-capitalist Athens lost against reactionary Sparta and (2) that Sparta won by adopting many of the innovations which they, and their proponents like Plato, originally decried. The consequence of the Athenian defeat, moreover, were unintended. Sparta, long in decline, ended up becoming a virtual client of Persia before its defeat at the hands of formerly-allied Thebes and Athens, after a period of dictatorship, returned to democratic power to ally with its former Theban enemies in overthrowing oligarchies established by the Spartiates. Meanwhile, military innovations introduced by the war were perfected to the north and the whole hellenic order of things was overthrown by the Philip and his son Alexander.
Hanson's focus, however, is primarily with things military and the myths he attacks are both ancient and modern. A primary one is that of hoplite warfare, a form of warfare identified with the virtues of a yeoman citizenry. In fact, as he shows, very little hoplite battle was conducted during the Peloponnesian war. Calvary, light infantry and marines were coming to the fore and the fighters were increasingly the lumpen, slaves and mercenaries. Further, as in almost all wars, the real misery, quantitatively speaking, was more from the externalities of conflict than from the direct exercise of it. Far and away the greatest dying on Athens' part occurred during its plague and resulted from the Periclean strategy of avoiding infantry contests with the invading Spartans.
Hanson, a farmer himself, brings to his book much information about the ancient economics of warfare. How much did a trireme cost to build and maintain exactly? How much the hoplite panoply? How easy was it, really, for the occupying Spartans to devastate the Attic countryside? Were did the food come from?--the money?"
"I first heard of Victor Davis Hanson when Rush Limbaugh referred to him several years ago. After Rush mentioned him, I googled Victor Davis Hanson and found many, many articles written by him. Soon I learned he was a raisin farmer living in California who is also an ancient Greek author and historian. He seems to be a man who loves, defends and teaches about Western culture. Naturally, I became a fan of his and began to somewhat regularly read his articles posted on the Internet.
Soon I became interested in reading some of his books. But like many, I was very intimidated about picking up any of his books because they all seemed to require knowledge about ancient Greek history.
Like many of the books in my library, I happened upon one of his books at Half-Priced Books. I bought it and put it on the shelf. By the time I finished The Chess Artist, I was in a good situation for regular reading (by riding the bus for 2 hours every day). So I tossed A War Like No Other in my bag one morning and opened it on the bus and began reading. What was amazing to me was how easily Hanson made it to read ancient Greek history. Soon I was several chapters into the book and I was genuinely hooked.
As I lacked a lot of background knowledge and information on the Peloponnesian War, I referred to the Wikipedia entry quite a bit to get an overview of what happened in that war.
I won't go into details about the book since it has been a month or so since I finished reading it, but I will say that this books seemed to have opened up a whole new world for me. I had dipped my toes into ancient Greece while taking history of civilization requirements in college, but I never really got into it that much. But while reading this book, I became fascinated with how wars were fought and how the two cultures of Athens and Sparta collided in that seemingly never-ending war.
I enjoyed this book so much, every time we got to Half-Priced Books, instead of heading right to the chess section, I now head to the history section and look for Victor Davis Hanson books. On our last trip, I landed two VDH books and one general ancient Greek history book (along with a book about the golden age of piracy). So for the next several months, I'll be reading and learning about ancient Greece and reading VDH."
"One of the author's goals in this book was to talk about the war from a top-level perspective, skipping the chronology of the battles or events. My eyes glazed over these lists of random facts or situations. I apparently need the structure of chronology in a history book because I much preferred the parts that were explained in sequence (e.g., the siege of Syracuse or Plataea). So while the information presented was interesting, I did not enjoy the format of this book."
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