Download or read book Sparta and War written by Stephen Hodkinson and published by Classical Press of Wales. This book was released on 2006-12-31 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ten new essays from a distinguished international cast treat Sparta's most famous area of activity. The results are challenging. Among the contributors, Thomas Figueira explores the paradox that Sparta's cavalry was an undistinguished institution. Jean Ducat conducts the most thorough study to date of Sparta's official cowards, the 'tremblers'. Anton Powell asks why Sparta chose not to destroy Athens after the Peloponnesian War. And Stephen Hodkinson argues that the image of Spartan society as militaristic may after all be a?mirage. This is the sixth volume from the International Sparta Seminar, founded by Powell and Hodkinson in 1988. The series has established itself as the main forum for the study of Spartan history.
Download or read book A War Like No Other written by Victor Davis Hanson and published by Random House Trade Paperbacks. This book was released on 2006-09-12 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of our most provocative military historians, Victor Davis Hanson has given us painstakingly researched and pathbreaking accounts of wars ranging from classical antiquity to the twenty-first century. Now he juxtaposes an ancient conflict with our most urgent modern concerns to create his most engrossing work to date, A War Like No Other. 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 its golden age. Thucydides wrote the standard history of the Peloponnesian War, which has given readers throughout the ages a vivid and authoritative narrative. But Hanson offers readers something new: a complete chronological account that reflects the political background of the time, the strategic thinking of the combatants, the misery of battle in multifaceted theaters, and important insight into how these events echo in the present. Hanson compellingly portrays the ways Athens and Sparta fought on land and sea, in city and countryside, and details their employment of the full scope of conventional and nonconventional tactics, from sieges to targeted assassinations, torture, and terrorism. He also assesses the crucial roles played by warriors such as Pericles and Lysander, artists, among them Aristophanes, and thinkers including Sophocles and Plato. Hanson’s perceptive analysis of events and personalities raises many thought-provoking questions: Were Athens and Sparta like America and Russia, two superpowers battling to the death? Is the Peloponnesian War echoed in the endless, frustrating conflicts of Vietnam, Northern Ireland, and the current Middle East? Or was it more like America’s own Civil War, a brutal rift that rent the fabric of a glorious society, or even this century’s “red state—blue state” schism between liberals and conservatives, a cultural war that manifestly controls military policies? Hanson daringly brings the facts to life and unearths the often surprising ways in which the past informs the present. Brilliantly researched, dynamically written, A War Like No Other is like no other history of this important war.
Download or read book Sparta s Second Attic War written by Paul Anthony Rahe and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2020-08-04 with total page 405 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a continuation of his multivolume series on ancient Sparta, Paul Rahe narrates the second stage in the six-decades-long, epic struggle between Sparta and Athens that first erupted some seventeen years after their joint victory in the Persian Wars. Rahe explores how and why open warfare between these two erstwhile allies broke out a second time, after they had negotiated an extended truce. He traces the course of the war that then took place, he examines and assesses the strategy each community pursued and the tactics adopted, and he explains how and why mutual exhaustion forced on these two powers yet another truce doomed to fail. At stake for each of the two peoples caught up in this enduring strategic rivalry, as Rahe shows, was nothing less than the survival of its political regime and of the peculiar way of life to which that regime gave rise.
Download or read book Sparta at War written by Scott M. Rusch and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the eighth century bc, Sparta became one of the leading cities of ancient Greece, conquering the southern Peloponnese, and from the mid-sixth century bc until the mid-fourth, Sparta became a military power of recognized importance. For almost two centuries the massed Spartan army remained unbeaten in the field. Spartan officers also commanded with great success armies of mercenaries or coalition allies, as well as fleets of war galleys. Although it is the stand of the Three Hundred at Thermopylae that has earned Sparta undying fame, it was her victories over both Persian invaders and the armies and navies of Greek rivals that upheld her position of leadership in Greece. Even a steady decline in Spartiate numbers, aggravated by a terrible earthquake in 464 bc, failed to end their dominance. Only when the Thebans learned how to defeat the massed Spartan army in pitched battle was Sparta toppled from her position of primacy. Scott Rusch examines what is known of the history of Sparta, from the settlement of the city to her defeat at Theban hands, focusing upon military campaigns and the strategic circumstances that drove them. Rusch offers fresh perspectives on important questions of Spartan history, and illuminates some of antiquity's most notable campaigns.
Download or read book Sparta s First Attic War written by Paul Anthony Rahe and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2019-08-06 with total page 327 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A companion volume to The Spartan Regime and The Grand Strategy of Classical Sparta that explores the collapse of the Spartan-Athenian alliance During the Persian Wars, Sparta and Athens worked in tandem to defeat what was, in terms of relative resources and power, the greatest empire in human history. For the decade and a half that followed, they continued their collaboration until a rift opened and an intense, strategic rivalry began. In a continuation of his series on ancient Sparta, noted historian Paul Rahe examines the grounds for their alliance, the reasons for its eventual collapse, and the first stage in an enduring conflict that would wreak havoc on Greece for six decades. Throughout, Rahe argues that the alliance between Sparta and Athens and their eventual rivalry were extensions of their domestic policy and that the grand strategy each articulated in the wake of the Persian Wars and the conflict that arose in due course grew out of the opposed material interests and moral imperatives inherent in their different regimes.
Download or read book The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Pericles written by Loren J. Samons II and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2007-01-15 with total page 25 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mid-fifth-century Athens saw the development of the Athenian empire, the radicalization of Athenian democracy through the empowerment of poorer citizens, the adornment of the city through a massive and expensive building program, the classical age of Athenian tragedy, the assembly of intellectuals offering novel approaches to philosophical and scientific issues, and the end of the Spartan-Athenian alliance against Persia and the beginning of open hostilities between the two greatest powers of ancient Greece. The Athenian statesman Pericles both fostered and supported many of these developments. Although it is no longer fashionable to view Periclean Athens as a social or cultural paradigm, study of the history, society, art, and literature of mid-fifth-century Athens remains central to any understanding of Greek history. This collection of essays reveal the political, religious, economic, social, artistic, literary, intellectual, and military infrastructure that made the Age of Pericles possible.
Download or read book The Grand Strategy of Classical Sparta written by Paul Anthony Rahe and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2015-11-24 with total page 657 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: DIV” “Powerfully illustrates . . . that this regime determined the character and limits of Sparta’s domestic and foreign policy.” (Susan D. Collins, IThe Review of Politics) More than 2500 years ago a confederation of small Greek city-states defeated the invading armies of Persia, the most powerful empire in the world. In this meticulously researched study, historian Paul Rahe argues that Sparta was responsible for the initial establishment of the Hellenic defensive coalition and was the most essential player in its ultimate victory. Drawing from an impressive range of ancient sources, including Herodotus and Plutarch, the author veers from the traditional Atheno-centric view of the Greco-Persian Wars to examine from a Spartan perspective the strategy that halted the Persian juggernaut. Rahe provides a fascinating, detailed picture of life in Sparta circa 480 B.C., revealing how the Spartans’ form of government and the regimen to which they subjected themselves instilled within them the pride, confidence, discipline, and discernment necessary to forge an alliance that would stand firm against a great empire, driven by religious fervor, that held sway over two-fifths of the human race. “[Rahe] has an excellent eye for military logistics . . . crisp and persuasive.” —The Wall Street Journal “Intensely well-researched and well-balanced.” —Steve Donoghue, The National “Masterful.” —Joseph Bottum, Books and Culture “A serious scholarly endeavor.” —Eric W. Robinson, American Historical Review “This brilliant revisionist study . . . reminds us how Sparta . . . saved Western freedom from the Persian aggression—and did so because of its innate courage, political stability, and underappreciated genius.” —Victor Davis Hanson, author of The Other Greeks “Full of keen understandings that help explain Spartan policy, diplomacy, and strategy.” —Donald Kagan, author of The Peloponnesian War /DIV
Download or read book The Plague of War written by Jennifer Tolbert Roberts and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 449 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A major new history of the violent, protracted conflict between ancient Athens and Sparta.
Download or read book Spartan Warrior 735 331 BC written by Duncan B Campbell and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2012-07-20 with total page 66 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Immortalized through their exploits at the battle of Thermopylae under the legendary Leonidas, as well as countless other victories throughout the classical period, the Spartans were some of the best-trained, -organized and most-feared warriors of the ancient world. The small state of Sparta, known to the Ancient Greeks as Lakedaimon, developed a unique warrior society that used serfs and non-citizens to do all of the manual work, leaving the free-born men of Sparta free to concentrate all of their energies on warfare. Forbidden from engaging in any form of manual labour, these Spartan warriors were trained from an early age in a brutal regime that gave them the necessary discipline and tolerance to withstand the pressures of phalanx warfare and endure all manner of hardships on campaign. This book covers all aspects of the Spartan warrior's life, from the earliest days of his training through his life in peace and war, culminating in the battlefield experiences of these feared combatants.
Download or read book Fortress Israel written by Patrick Tyler and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2012-09-18 with total page 554 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Once in the military system, Israelis never fully exit," writes the prizewinning journalist Patrick Tyler in the prologue to Fortress Israel. "They carry the military identity for life, not just through service in the reserves until age forty-nine . . . but through lifelong expectations of loyalty and secrecy." The military is the country to a great extent, and peace will only come, Tyler argues, when Israel's military elite adopt it as the national strategy. Fortress Israel is an epic portrayal of Israel's martial culture—of Sparta presenting itself as Athens. From Israel's founding in 1948, we see a leadership class engaged in an intense ideological struggle over whether to become the "light unto nations," as envisioned by the early Zionists, or to embrace an ideology of state militarism with the objective of expanding borders and exploiting the weaknesses of the Arabs. In his first decade as prime minister, David Ben-Gurion conceived of a militarized society, dominated by a powerful defense establishment and capable of defeating the Arabs in serial warfare over many decades. Bound by self-reliance and a stern resolve never to forget the Holocaust, Israel's military elite has prevailed in war but has also at times overpowered Israel's democracy. Tyler takes us inside the military culture of Moshe Dayan, Yitzhak Rabin, Ariel Sharon, and Benjamin Netanyahu, introducing us to generals who make decisions that trump those of elected leaders and who disdain diplomacy as appeasement or surrender. Fortress Israel shows us how this martial culture envelops every family. Israeli youth go through three years of compulsory military service after high school, and acceptance into elite commando units or air force squadrons brings lasting prestige and a network for life. So ingrained is the martial outlook and identity, Tyler argues, that Israelis are missing opportunities to make peace even when it is possible to do so. "The Zionist movement had survived the onslaught of world wars, the Holocaust, and clashes of ideology," writes Tyler, "but in the modern era of statehood, Israel seemed incapable of fielding a generation of leaders who could adapt to the times, who were dedicated to ending . . . [Israel's] isolation, or to changing the paradigm of military preeminence." Based on a vast array of sources, declassified documents, personal archives, and interviews across the spectrum of Israel's ruling class, FortressIsrael is a remarkable story of character, rivalry, conflict, and the competing impulses for war and for peace in the Middle East.
Download or read book Grand Strategy and Military Alliances written by Peter R. Mansoor and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2016-02-09 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A broad-ranging study of the relationship between alliances and the conduct of grand strategy, examined through historical case studies.
Download or read book Xenophon s Peloponnesian War written by Aggelos Kapellos and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2019-09-23 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The advances in Xenophontic studies of the last generation have still not resulted in a definitive literary treatment of the Hellenica 1-2, so Xenophon’s description of the Peloponnesian War deserves closer examination. This book aims to show that Xenophon has crafted his narrative in such a way as to reinforce the opinion of Thucydides, whose work he continued, that the development of the Peloponnesian War depended to a great extent on Persian money, but the factors that ultimately determined its outcome were the moral virtues and the skills of the military leaders of Athens and Sparta. Regarding Athens, Xenophon wants to show that despite Persia’s support of Sparta, Athens lost the war because of its troubled relationship with Alcibiades; the moral disintegration of the Athenians who condemned illegally the Arginousai generals and the appointment of generals who were greatly inferior. Concerning Sparta, Xenophon leads his readers to believe that in spite of- not because of- the interference of Persia in the Peloponnesian War the moral and military qualities of Lysander and Callicratidas were what turned the course of the war either in favor of or against Sparta in each phase of the war.
Download or read book The Peloponnesian War written by Thucydides and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2008-05-23 with total page 635 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Thomas Hobbes's translation of Thucydides brings together the magisterial prose of one of the greatest writers of the English language and the depth of mind and experience of one of the greatest writers of history in any language. . . . For every reason, the current availability of this great work is a boon."—Joseph Cropsey, University of Chicago
Download or read book The End of Sparta written by Victor Davis Hanson and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2011-10-18 with total page 463 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A tale inspired by the battles of ancient Greek military leader Epaminondas is told through the eyes of a farmer who leaves his home to serve under the general and who is swept up against his better judgment in the fervor to bring democracy to regions oppressed by the Spartans. A first novel by the historian author of The Father of Us All. 40,000 first printing.
Download or read book Athenian Hoplite vs Spartan Hoplite written by Murray Dahm and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2021-01-21 with total page 81 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC), waged between Athens and Sparta and their respective allies, involved some of the most important developments in ancient warfare. A life-and-death struggle between the two most powerful Greek city-states in the wake of their combined successes against the Persian invasion of Xerxes in 480–479 BC, the conflict dragged in communities from all over the Greek world on one side or the other. Ranging from the Black Sea to Sicily, the war saw the first recorded widespread use of light-armed troops, reserves, the deep phalanx, and other ideas important for the development of Western warfare into the 4th century BC, such as strategic thinking. It also revealed lessons (some learned and some not) with respect to the strengths and weaknesses of hoplite warfare and the various states in Greece. Featuring full-color artwork and drawing upon an array of sources, this study of three pivotal clashes between Spartan and Athenian hoplite forces during the Peloponnesian War highlights all of these developments and lessons.
Download or read book Sparta written by Stephen Hodkinson and published by Classical Press of Wales. This book was released on 2009-12-31 with total page 451 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The history of Sparta is increasingly seen as important, not only for its own sake but also for understanding Athenian literature and the political history of numerous Greek states. Traditional approaches to Sparta are now being supplemented by contributions from archaeology and the social sciences. The renewed interest in Sparta is international. The volume includes, for the first time, original contributions from most of the world's leading authorities on Spartan history.
Download or read book The Warrior Ethos written by Steven Pressfield and published by Black Irish Entertainment LLC. This book was released on 2011-03-02 with total page 112 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: WARS CHANGE, WARRIORS DON'T We are all warriors. Each of us struggles every day to define and defend our sense of purpose and integrity, to justify our existence on the planet and to understand, if only within our own hearts, who we are and what we believe in. Do we fight by a code? If so, what is it? What is the Warrior Ethos? Where did it come from? What form does it take today? How do we (and how can we) use it and be true to it in our internal and external lives? The Warrior Ethos is intended not only for men and women in uniform, but artists, entrepreneurs and other warriors in other walks of life. The book examines the evolution of the warrior code of honor and "mental toughness." It goes back to the ancient Spartans and Athenians, to Caesar's Romans, Alexander's Macedonians and the Persians of Cyrus the Great (not excluding the Garden of Eden and the primitive hunting band). Sources include Herodotus, Thucydides, Plutarch, Xenophon, Vegetius, Arrian and Curtius--and on down to Gen. George Patton, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, and Israeli Minister of Defense, Moshe Dayan.
