A War Like No Other: How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War - Victor Hanson

A good introduction to war in Ancient Greece

Victor Davis Hanson is my favorite military author. His "The Soul of Battle" covers three generals who led free men and were victorious. This prompted me to track down the biography "Patton: The Man Behind the Legend, 1885-1945." George Patton was a flawed, but fascinating person. Dr. Hanson's chapter nine of "Carnage and Culture: Landmark Battles in the Rise to Western Power" helped me understand some of the cultural advantages the Americans had over the Japanese in World War II.

"A War Like No Other: How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War" is about Sparta and its allies fighting Athenians. Before this book I knew very little about the war, other than Sparta had fought and eventually conquered Athens.

Dr. Hanson does a great job of explaining the background of the war, who the major players were, why Sparta led the attack on Athens, why the war lasted so long and why Athens finally lost.

These were two strong cities which had vastly different strengths. Sparta had the best warriors in Greece. Athens would not meet them on land. Athens dominated the ocean. Sparta did not have a fleet until Persia financed the fleet which eventually destroyed hundreds of Athenian triremes. Without their fleet to protect the food ships, Athens started to starve and eventually surrendered.

Often while reading this book I thought the Athenians were idiots. For example after years of war the majority of Athens thought it was a good idea to start another war. They launched hundreds of ships and sent 45,000 men to try to conquer Syracuse. They lost all their ships and men. This was the beginning of the end. Almost as famous as "Never get involved in a land war in Asia" is don't start a second front in a war. The Athenians were already out numbered, yet they talked themselves into attacking Syracuse. Another stupid thing was several times Sparta said we've had enough, how about we end the war, and Athens said no, we're safe behind our walls we'll keep attacking your allies from the sea.

But in fairness Sparta and their allies also made a number of blunders. Sparta started off the war by leading a large army up to Athens and dared them to come out and fight. Athens declined the opportunity for suicide, so Sparta and friends went home. The next year Sparta came back, and then went back home. And again. And again. They did they five or six times. It took Sparta a long while to realize that Athens was not going to play Sparta's game.

I greatly enjoyed the book. It was well written, well organized and thought provoking. I'm glad I read it.

If you are interesting in the history of ancient Greece, this is a good book to read.

A War Like No Other: Victor Davis Hanson At His Very Best

The Peloponnesian War is perhaps the most difficult period of Classical Greek history to comprehend. Those who have read Thucydides' account of the events of that war know how problematic it can be to to follow a strictly chronological examination of the events. Dr. Hanson provides a fresh view in his "A War Like No Other" adopting a thematic approach that delves into the "human predicament" of the Greeks who were caught up in the events of the twenty-eight year struggle. This is one of those books a reader has to sort of "crawl into": what was Athens like during the plague; to suffer through a siege; fight in a hoplite battle and more? Victor Davis Hanson provides a psychological and sociological framework for the chronological events to take shape which allows for a deeper understanding of the people and their struggle. He gives the war both a context and a texture that gives life to the events. "A War Like No Other" is a must for historians and classicists but it can also be a fruitful read for anyone who wants to further understand the ancient culture that is the father of our own.

Read before Thucydides' Peloponesian War

I wish before reading Thucydides' Peloponesian War, that I had read this book as it explained what was happening. Many details I missed such as why the Spartans could cross in force so many times and do so little damage and the purpose behind the raids by the Athenian naval forces.

According to the writer much of the blame for the war from the Athenian's side on their democracy. It kept them fighting long after they should have stopped. It also feels that this democracy repeatably got rid of its capable leaders.

Finally this war he feels this war accelerated the rise in Greece of huge integrated armies with archers, cavalry, phalanxes etc all led by a general who did not fight but administered from the rear. This with the development of siege warfare and the post war atmosphere opened the way to the new empire builders that war lords like Alexander could fill.

A history teacher's review

"A War Like No Other" is classical historian Victor Davis Hanson's offering on the Peloponnesian War - the 27 year struggle between the Delian League (Athens and its allies) and the Peloponnesian League (Sparta and its allies) that ran on and off again from 431 to 404 B.C.

Hanson's book is perhaps also a "book like no other" if I may borrow a phrase. Despite the prominently placed quote for the New York Times on the front cover proclaiming that it is a contemporary retelling of the war, this is not a narrative history of the war. Rather, it does exactly what the subtitle promises - it tells the reader HOW the war was fought. It analyzes the techniques, the weapons, the strategies and the tactics but it is not a history per se. The book vaguely follows the course of the war, but often shifts backwards and forwards through the decades of the war and even before and after the war.

Giving this one a rating is tricky. It is well-researched and well-written. Hanson does a tremendous job of linking the events of the past with more current events, such as World War II, the Cold War and terrorism. In a way, you could say that the quote (and title of the book) from the ancient historian Thucydides was really not true, this war was not a war like no other, instead at least parts of it are like every war that followed since.

While well-written, I think that Hanson's decision to break the book up into thematic units ("Fire", "Disease", "Terror", "Armor", etc.) made the book less strong than if it had been told in more of a narrative manner. Hanson provided tons of endnotes to document his work which is a strength and indicative of the quality of work that Hanson creates, it was also quite annoying. Not the notes themselves, but the fact that they were endnotes with commentary requiring the reader to constantly flip back and forth to the end of the book and to keep two sets of bookmarks- one for the text and one for the endnotes. If a writer plans to write additional commentary in his or her notes common decency would suggest that footnotes are better for the reader. The continuity and flow of the main text is not broken by constant flipping to the back of the book. Shelby Foote did this to great effect in his gigantic 3 volume Civil War series. Tom Holland uses both in his book "Rubicon" - notes at the end, additional commentary at the bottom of the text.

As a history teacher, I found immediate uses for portions of the book in my classroom. I read to my class from Hanson's description of life on the Greek naval vessels and was able to use his information to give a brief description of the war and the experience of the soldier. I do recommend this book for serious world history teachers and any afficionados of classical ancient history.

Best book of its kind

I am a big fan of those authors like Jared Diamond who try to look at the big picture, but I also occasionally read more "conventional" history which focuses on events during a particular time and place. "A War Like No Other" is the best book of that kind I have ever read. It tries to understand the "why's" of the Peloponnesian War. Why was their a stalemate for so long; why was the effectiveness of Hoplites limited, and why didn't the Greek world realize this earlier; why was cavalry important and why wasn't more use made of it; why were the Greeks so poor at conducting sieges; what determined success at sea; why did Athen invade Syracuse, a fellow democracy, and one very distant; why was the war marked by a greater frequency of atrocities than the Greek world had previously experienced; what was the nature of democracy and oligarchy and what form did social tensions take; why were a few critical battles won or lost. The book also implicitly explains why any one with a classical background might be distrustful of democracy. Finally, students of modern history know the importance of economic might; Hanson, in answering some of his questions, shows the importance of economics in this ancient conflict.

I have a few minor complaints. The maps provided don't always show the places referred to: in fact, the reader would be advised to refer to the map on p.182 when reading the earlier chapters. It would have been helpful if the chapters on armor and cavalry had been earlier. Hanson is a like a home team announcer in sports, the home team being Athens, so that the failure to conquer democratic Syracuse, not just the loss of life (p.212), was a "tragedy". However one may dislike the Spartan state, it was Athens, not Sparta which was expansionist. For a celebration of the Spartan way of life, I would recommend Steven Pressfield's "Gates of Hell", which while a novel, focuses on the Spartan ethos.