List of Maps
Preface
CHAPTER ONE
Why the West Has Won
Enlightened Thugs · The Primacy of Battle · Ideas of the West ·The
Western Way of War
PART ONE · CREATION
CHAPTER TWO
Freedom—or “To Live as You Please” · Salamis, September 28, 480
B.C.
The Drowned · The Achaemenids and Freedom ·The Persian Wars and the
Strategy of Salamis · The Battle ·Eleutheria · The Legacy of
Salamis
CHAPTER THREE
Decisive Battle · Gaugamela, October 1, 331 B.C.
Angles of Vision · The Macedonian Military Machine · Killing Spree
· Decisive Battle and Western Warfare
CHAPTER FOUR
Citizen Soldiers · Cannae, August 2, 216 B.C.
A Summer Slaughter · Hannibal’s Jaws · Carthage and the West ·
Legions of Rome · The Idea of a Nation-in-Arms ·“Rulers of the
Entire World”—the Legacy of Civic Militarism
PART TWO · CONTINUITY
CHAPTER FIVE
Landed Infantry · Poitiers, October 11, 732
Horse Versus Foot · The Wall · The Hammer · Islam Ascendant ·Dark
Ages? · Infantry, Property, and Citizenship · Poitiers and
Beyond
CHAPTER SIX
Technology and the Wages of Reason · Tenochtitlán, June 24,
1520–August 13, 1521
The Battles for Mexico City · Aztec War · The Mind of the
Conquistadors · Spanish Rationalism · Why Did the Castilians Win? ·
Reason and War
CHAPTER SEVEN
The Market—or Capitalism Kills · Lepanto, October 7, 1571
Galley War · Legends of Lepanto · Europe and the Ottomans ·
Capitalism, the Ottoman Economy, and Islam · War and the Market
PART THREE · CONTROL
CHAPTER EIGHT
Discipline—or Warriors Are Not Always Soldiers · Rorke’s Drift,
January 22–23, 1879
Killing Fields · The Imperial Way · Zulu Power and Impotence ·
Courage Is Not Necessarily Discipline
CHAPTER NINE
Individualism · Midway, June 4–8, 1942
Floating Infernos · The Annihilation of the Devastators ·The
Imperial Fleet Moves Out · Western and Non-Western Japan
·Spontaneity and Individual Initiative at Midway · Individualism in
Western Warfare
CHAPTER TEN
Dissent and Self-Critique · Tet, January 31–April 6, 1968
Battles Against the Cities · Victory as Defeat · Aftermath · War
amid Audit, Scrutiny, and Self-Critique
EPILOGUE
Western Warfare—Past and Future
The Hellenic Legacy · Other Battles? ·The Singularity of Western
Military Culture · The Continuity of Western Lethality ·The West
Versus the West?
AFTERWORD
Carnage and Culture
after September 11, 2001
GLOSSARY
FOR FURTHER READING
INDEX
Victor Davis Hanson is the Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow in Residence in Classics and Military History at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, a professor of Classics Emeritus at California State University, Fresno, and a nationally syndicated columnist for Tribune Media Services. He is also the Wayne & Marcia Buske Distinguished Fellow in History, Hillsdale College, where he teaches each fall semester courses in military history and classical culture. He is the author of The Soul of Battle, An Autumn of War, and Ripples of Battle, all published by Anchor Books. His most recent book is The Savior Generals (Bloomsbury 2013). Hanson was awarded the National Humanities Medal in 2007, the Bradley Prize in 2008, as well as the William F. Buckley Prize (2015), the Claremont Institute’s Statesmanship Award (2006), and the Eric Breindel Award for opinion journalism (2002). He divides his time between his farm in Selma, CA, where he was born in 1953, and the Stanford campus.
“Vivid . . . ambitious . . . Challenges readers to broaden their
horizons and examine their assumptions. . . . [Hanson] more than
makes his case.”--The New York Times Book Review
“No one offers a more compelling picture of how wars reflect and
affect the societies, including our own, that wage them.” —National
Review
“Hanson . . . is becoming one of the best-known historians in
America . . . [Carnage and Culture] can only enhance his
reputation.” —John Keegan, Daily Telegraph (London)
“Victor Davis Hanson is courting controversy again with another
highly readable, lucid work. Together with John Keegan, he is our
most interesting historian of war.” —Jean Bethke Elshtain, author
of Women and War
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