\"A War like no other\"; by Victor Davis Hanson

[Goffredo]

"A War like no other: how the athenians and spartans fought the peloponnesian war" by Victor Davis Hanson
2005
Random House Trade Paperbacks
ISBN 0-8129-6970-7

The second best book I' ve read about Greece in a decade.

[Giannis K. Hoplite]

It is good indeed. I liked even more the Peloponnesian War by Donald Kagan,though Kagan usually has a more Athenian scope,like most authors the truth is. Hanson has a vivid way to say things and usually speaks about unusual matters.
Khaire
Giannis

[Marcvs75]

I've read it, and i must say it was a bit disappointing. I am a fan of VD Hanson tough. His book "The Western way of war" was far better.

[Goffredo]

I read Kagan's book and indeed liked it very much. I'd rank it the fourth best book on Greece I read in past decade.
But Kagan's book is somewhat conventional and follows the chronology (the time line). Hanson's book follows topics and does not flow of time, but skips about to follow his train of thought. In addition, and this is Hanson's forte, I really did get a feeling for the mood swings of the people of all "classes", the democratic confusion in Athens, the mentality of Spartans, of the helots, of the besieged, of the besiegers, of the man-of-war (on land and sea), the smell of sweat, of blood, of slaughter, of vicotry, even of rotting wood (the triremes). In many MANY passages I was horrified! There is a similiarly successful attempt in Barry Strauss' book on the Trojan War.

jeff

p.s. the third best book on Greece I read in a decade is the italian translation of a book on Alicibiades by Jacquelline de Romilly. Unfortunately I gather this book has not been translated into english as I did not find on the web

p.p.s. My ranking criterion is how a book triggers a wish to read and know more.

[Giannis K. Hoplite]

Right,hanson has this advantage(it's an advantage for me) in all his books,he tries to get you there and feel like them. He tries to o so in his Western Way of War,even more than the War like no other. Kagan also explains well the reasons and the feelings of usually the athenian ekklesia,and most of the times excuses their decisions as the most logical and right,given the circustances.
I want to read the one about the Trojan War. I saw it in greek!!! But after so many dissapointing books on the subject,i was reluctant to buy it.
Khaire
Giannis

[Goffredo]

Hi Giannis
Trust me and read the book by Barry Strauss. I was so pleased with it that my heart warms at the thought of convincing someone to read it. I really think you will like it.

Srauss describes warfare in the bronze age and argues, by making comparisons to what was "typical" war-making in the "global" culture of the period, that the events told by Homer and the other sources of the Trojan War are more likely to have happened than not. He successfully attempts to depict the possible motivations for how the greeks and the trojans acted, their material and cultural constraints and options, and the tragedy of war in that period of history. I find it a brilliant piece of work and really creates an atmosphere that might trigger good writing of novels and film scripts for movies with exotic yet credible costumes and scenes.

[Paralus]

I've read a couple of Hanson's books (The Wars of the Ancient Greeks comes to mind) and he has a certain elan. He seems always to mention slaughter and anihilation at some point - generally when he gets to Macedonia and Rome.

I have not read the latest: I have several tomes on the Peloponnesian war including Kagan's.

I'm more inclined to thematic works and, in that regard, would thoroughly recommend Anton Powell's Athens and Sparta. I'm re-reading this - again - having gone looking for a particular thing. Bit like a re-discovered music album. I notice it's been updated and re-issued; might have to check it out at Abbeys.

Cawkwell's The Greek Wars is also a thought provoking read.

[Tantalus]

Goffredo,

I also liked A War Like No Other. And you've inspired me to get the Barry Strauss book on the Trojan War. But I have to ask, if -

- A War Like No Other is the second best book you've read about Greece in a decade.
- A book on Alicibiades by Jacquelline de Romilly is the third best.
- And Kagan's book is the fourth best book you've read about Greece in a decade.

What is the best? I only ask to get reading recommendations. Did you mean it is the Barry Strauss book?

I do have the book recommended by Paralus, Cawkwell's The Greek Wars. It's on my "To Be Read" shelf. But I have skimmed it and it looks very intriguing.

[Goffredo]

Yes
I found Strauss' book the most stimulating and refreshing. But I found all these books are excelllent. Strauss's stands out in my eyes as it is the one I knew less about so it was an eye opener!

[Ghostmojo]

I've read it, and i must say it was a bit disappointing. I am a fan of VD Hanson tough. His book "The Western way of war" was far better.

Hanson's style annoys me sometimes though. At the risk of offending any American forum members (which is unintentional) he does have an tiresomely repetitive manner of making connections with past American conflicts such as Viet-Nam. I don't notice this so much with authors from other countires. British authors don't continually compare the Spartans with the Coldstream Guards at Waterloo!!!

[PMBardunias]

British authors don't continually compare the Spartans with the Coldstream Guards at Waterloo!!!

Had they, and their German and French counterparts, been as circumspect in constructing Spartan social and political life, rather than creating one that largely reflected the ideals or fears of the then current society, we would have a far clearer picture of Sparta.

[qcarr]

I share Ghostmojo's opinion that much of Hanson's writing is annoying: he is an unapologetic Thebophile (see "Yeoman of Thebes" in his work, The Soul of Battle) and consistently ascribes modern values and ideals to ancients in order to "prove" his theses. However, I thoroughly enjoyed A War Like No Other, and feel that he did an admirable job of writing as an appropriately neutral narrator. It is, by far, one of Hanson's best works and ranks with The Western Way of War as his most valuable contribution to ancient warfare scholarship.

[Epictetus]

I know that I’m a couple of years late, but I finally read A War Like No Other. Prior to reading the book I knew practically nothing about the Peloponnesian War, so this was all new to me.

Unfortunately I had a very hard time following his nonlinear narrative, perhaps because I haven’t read Thucydides (or anyone else, for that matter). A story has a beginning, middle and end. Hanson literally starts at the end and plunges into the middle, rather ruining the story for me. Out of frustration I eventually went online to read the chronology and other descriptions of events to figure out what the hell was going on.

I think a chronological narrative can be particularly important for a war story – after all, events at one stage influence events later. When the narrative is by theme the author has to be particularly careful so readers can recognise how one action caused a reaction. He also has to be careful to explain something when it first appears in the text, or all subsequent appearances will only add to the confusion. I had problems with both issues.

Not being able to follow his narrative could perhaps be blamed on my ignorance of the war, but the writing is purely Hanson’s, and I didn’t like it. Often I felt like these were lectures given to students, which is quite possible. Unfortunately they don’t always come across well in print.

This little passage annoyed me for several reasons:

What was the attraction of such missile fighters? In a word, they could kill from afar.

Then there is the cardinal sin of unclear writing. If I was an English teacher I would have my students diagram this sentence and then re-write it just to see what they came up with:

In this context, did the Spartan failure in Attica between 431 and 425 to win the war or concessions prove that the strategy of agricultural devastation was no longer of much value in a conflict as multifaceted and long as the Peloponnesian War?

Sometimes the writing is odd. Conjunctions are in strange places, there is confusion about which verbs are supposed to go with which nouns and modifiers seem to have been tossed in by a budding novelist with a limited vocabulary (I wish I had a euro for every time "terrible" appears in the text). The writing is not always like that, but it happens often enough to be annoying. I started to mark every page that had writing that bothered me, and I think I ended up with something every 20 pages or so.

I see many other members here are fans of Victor Davis Hanson, so maybe some of my dislike of this book stems from inexperience with the issue. Perhaps readers with more knowledge about the Peloponnesian War would get more out of this book, but for first-timers I would recommend starting with something else.

[Giannis K. Hoplite]

Well,leaving the strange language appart,i do believe that you chose an odd book to start your familiarisation with the peloponnesian war. It is such a complicated story even if you try to say it in a nutshell. As i said earlier in the thread, i would much more recommend Kagan's "The Peloponnesian War", which follows a linear and very detailed description and analysis of every single event. Hanson wrote a book for all those that are rarely told in books about the war. I think he could write this book in a wider title of the evollution of warfare in the 5th century,but the Peloponnesian war in itself was indeed the cause of many changes on how greeks saw war,and i think this is his whole point. It's been some time that i have read the book though.
Khaire
Giannis

[qcarr]

David,

As you have found, A War Like No Other is not a good introduction to the history of the Peloponnesian War. I agree with Giannis that Kagan's The Peloponnesian War is a much better alternative. Kagan's history is chronological, well written, and fairly detailed while at the same time enjoyable to read. It's sort of a condensed version of his 4-volume set on the same subject (The Outbreak of the Peloponnesian War, The Archidamian War, The Peace of Nicias and the Sicilian Expedition, and The Fall of the Athenian Empire).