A War Like No Other
How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War
by Victor Davis Hanson · first published 2005
100% recommend
"Hanson 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 philosophers including Sophocles and Plato." "Hanson's analysis of events and personalities raises many questions: Were Athens and Sparta like the United States and the Soviet Union, two superpowers battling to the death? Is the
Affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Victor Davis Hanson, through hard work and luck, has parlayed his Stanford Classics PhD into a successful career as classicist, military historian, columnist, and conservative pundit. I just finished A War Like no Other http://www.amazon.com/War-Like-Other-Athenians-Peloponnesian... which I recommend, but I don't think it's odd for him to write this. Even with hard work most folks with liberal arts degrees won't see…
on “When Land Is History” ↗…in Athens led to all kind of disasters as the crowd was easily swayed by demagogues like Alcibiades, leading to disastrous foreign adventures like the sicillian expedition in the Peloponnesian war (A war like no other is a great book on this). It's hardly a model we should emulate. I prefer the mediated kind of democracy (in spite of the tendency to oligarchy) as at least it tempers the rule of the mob.
on “Government likely to open criminal probe into NSA leaks” ↗Since you mentioned the Greeks, anyone with the slightest interest in Ancient Greece should read “A War Like No Other” by Victor Davis Hanson. It’s a fascinating account of the Peloponnesian War. There’s a chapter on siege warfare.
on “OpenDUNE – An open-source recreation of the game Dune II” ↗