Ancient Warfare
A Very Short Introduction

pretty dang good. really it's just the history of ancient western warfare. and at that, it's really about greco Roman warfare. and at that, it's half about the warfare itself and half about the ideological construction of that warfare. How war was justified, why it was done, how it was thought that......more

The structure of Ancient Warfare: A Very Short Introduction goes from wide-ranging to smaller and smaller aspects of ancient warfare, in the author's exploration of the idea of the "Western way of war" and why that idea is not as true as many writers of warfare think it is. Starting with classical p......more

The first chapters of this book were not very new to me and therefore not very exciting. The last chapter, however, tied all the information presented in the earlier chapter to make an extremely important point about the ideology of "the western way of war" that gives many people the idea that weste......more

Focused on ancient Greece and Rome, this introduction touches aspects such as philosophy, politics, motivations, prejudices, strategy, the technical skills needed to fight, siege warfare, as well as the notions of the construction of identity by war, justice, and the role of divine intervention.......more

Chapter 1: 'At my signal unleash hell': the Western Way of War? Chapter 2: Thinking with war Chapter 3: War and society Chapter 4: Thinking about war Chapter 5: Strategy Chapter 6: Fighting Chapter 7: 'People should know when they are conquered': the reinventions of the Western Way of War......more