| Title | : | A History of Warfare |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0679730826 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780679730828 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 432 |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 1993 |
| Awards | : | Duff Cooper Prize (1993), The Society for Military History Distinguished Book Award (1994) |
A History of Warfare Reviews
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Brilliant. A cultural history of war from antiquity to the present day in a single volume. Keegan starts with the symbolic forms of war among the so called "primitives," including those from the neolithic, using much archaeological evidence to do so. He then moves on to the advent of the chariot by the ancient Thracians and Egyptians, and its eventual supersession by the compound-bow wielding horse peoples from the Eurasian steppes (Huns, Mongols, Magyars, et. al). Then the subsequent heyday of mounted cavalry whose hold over various cultures (Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian, etc.) was so strong it meant their undoing once gunpowder arrived. That's a constant refrain here, warriors stuck in outdated modes of warfare that ensure their demise. For example, there's the discussion of fortification and its ability to sustain long seiges, and how this all changed in the gunpowder era and led to radically different designs. Much discussion too on the disposition of troops in the field (the Greek phalanx, the Napoleonic manouever, etc.), methods of logistics and supply, evolution of naval warfare (from the Greek trireme to the modern ironclad) etc. In the end the book constitutes a methodical disproving of Clausewitz. To wit,
War is not the continuation of policy by other means. The world would be a simpler place to understand if this dictum of Clausewitz's were true. Clausewitz, a Prussian veteran of the Napoleonic wars who used his years of retirement to compose what was destined to become the most famous book on war—called
On War—ever written, actually wrote that war is the continuation "of political intercourse" (des politischen Verkehrs) "with the intermixing of other means" (mit Einmischung anderer Mittel). The original German expresses a more subtle and complex idea than the English words in which it is so frequently quoted. In either form, however, Clausewitz's thought is incomplete. It implies the existence of states, of state interests and rational calculation about how they may be achieved. Yet war antedates the state, diplomacy and strategy by many millennia.
Keegan's solution for moving beyond the culturally limited and blinkered view of Clausewitz is fascinating. I've read the book twice, which should be praise enough. -
Μετά το τέλος των ναπολεόντειων πολέμων ο Πρώσος στρατιωτικός Καρλ φον Κλαούζεβιτς έγραψε ένα βιβλίο το οποίο άσκησε καθοριστική επίδραση στην παγκόσμια πολιτική σκέψη για τους επόμενους δύο αιώνες. Ο λόγος για το
Περί του πολέμου, ένα έργο του οποίου η διδασκαλία σε κάθε σοβαρή σχολή πολέμου θεωρείται σήμερα εκ των ων ουκ άνευ, ένα είδος ευαγγελίου θα έλεγε κανείς, αφού μέσα στις σελίδες του βρίσκεται το καταστάλαγμα της πολεμικής εμπειρίας ενός στρατιώτη, ο οποίος για είκοσι περίπου χρόνια πολέμησε με πάθος ενάντια στην Επανάσταση και τον Ναπολέοντα, σε μάχες που έλαβαν χώρα κατά μήκος όλης της ηπειρωτικής Ευρώπης, από τις εύφορες πεδιάδες της Γαλλίας μέχρι τις αχανείς στέπες της Ρωσίας. Μιλάμε δηλαδή για έναν κοσμογυρισμένο άνθρωπο που τα μάτια του είδαν πολλά και τα αυτιά άκουσαν ακόμη περισσότερα. Στο εν λόγω έργο, πέρα από τα προφανή θέματα τακτικής και στρατηγικής, ο Κλαούζεβιτς προσπαθεί να ανιχνεύσει την αληθινή φύση του πολέμου, να βρει δηλαδή τον λόγο για τον οποίο ο πόλεμος εξακολουθεί να υφίσταται ως ανθρώπινη δραστηριότητα στον σύγχρονο κόσμο. Το απόσταγμα των συμπερασμάτων του βρίσκεται εν πολλοίς, αλλά όχι αποκλειστικά, σε μια πρόταση η οποία έγινε από την εποχή της δημοσίευσης του βιβλίου παγκόσμιο ρητό: «ο πόλεμος είναι μια πράξη βίας προορισμένη να εξαναγκάσει τον αντίπαλο να εκτελέσει τη θέλησή μας, είναι μια απλή συνέχιση της πολιτικής με άλλα μέσα».
Αυτή ακριβώς η διαπίστωση του Κλαούζεβιτς είναι η σπίθα που έδωσε την αφορμή στον Τζον Κήγκαν να γράψει τη δική του ιστορία του πολέμου, και μέσα από την πολεμική του ενάντια στο έργο του Πρώσου στρατηγού, να διατυπώσει την καινοφανή θέση πως ο πόλεμος είναι πρωτίστως ένα πολιτισμικό γεγονός (!). Αντανακλά δηλαδή, την πολιτισμική φάση στην οποία βρίσκεται μια ανθρώπινη κοινωνία και μάλιστα ο τρόπος που πολεμά η κάθε κοινωνία είναι ενδεικτικός του πολιτισμικού σταδίου στο οποίο βρίσκεται. Αυτή είναι μια βασική αντίθεση στην σκέψη του Κλαούζεβιτς, για τον οποίο ο πόλεμος ανεξαρτήτως πολιτισμικού σταδίου είναι κατά βάση υπόθεση συμφερόντων και της πολιτικής πράξης που προκύπτει από αυτά. Με λίγα λόγια, ο Άγγλος ιστορικός μας λέει ότι ο πόλεμος είναι ενδογενές χαρακτηριστικό του ανθρώπινου πολιτισμού και διεξάγεται ακόμη και ανεξάρτητα από τις πολιτικές ή άλλες επιδιώξεις. Για να υποστηρίξει τη θέση του, δίνει πέντε ιστορικά παραδείγματα: της νήσου του Πάσχα στον Ειρηνικό, των Ζουλού στο νότιο κέρας της Αφρικής, των Μαμελούκων στην προ-οθωμανική Αίγυπτο, των Σαμουράι στην μετα-μεσαιωνική Ιαπωνία και των πυρηνικών όπλων. Καθένα από αυτά τα ελάχιστα πέντε παραδείγματα, ενώ δείχνει να έχει επιλεγεί προσεκτικά ώστε να φαίνεται ότι εξυπηρετεί τη θέση του, δεν αποτελεί κάτι λιγότερο από κλασική περίπτωση κατά την οποία ο ερευνητής ψάχνει να βρει τι στοιχεία είναι διαθέσιμα για να «αποδείξουν» τα προαποφασισμένα συμπεράσματά του. Κι αν αυτά ακόμη δεν είναι διαθέσιμα, κανένα πρόβλημα. Μπορεί να τα παρουσιάσει με τέτοιο τρόπο ώστε να φαίνεται ότι αποδεικνύει τη θέση του.
Για παράδειγμα, αναφέρω την εξαιρετικά αμφιλεγόμενη περίπτωση της Νήσου του Πάσχα, την οποία ο Κήγκαν ανασύρει κυριολεκτικά από τα αζήτητα της ιστορίας προκειμένου να αποδείξει ότι ο πόλεμος δεν είναι πολιτική πράξη. Το αίνιγμα της εξαφάνισης των κατασκευαστών των πέτρινων κεφαλών που βρίσκονται ακόμη διάσπαρτες στο νησί (απομονωμένο πια), έχει απασχολήσει επί πολλά χρόνια τους αρχαιολόγους, ενώ παράλληλα έχει γίνει αφορμή και για μερικές εξωφρενικές θεωρίες συνωμοσίας. Η μακροχρόνια έρευνα έχει αποκαλύψει ότι η κοινωνία αυτή των νησιωτών έπεσε θύμα φοβερού εμφυλίου πολέμου ο οποίος οδήγησε στην εξαφάνιση κάθε μορφής ζωής στο νησί. Υπερπληθυσμός, διχασμός των κατοίκων σε αλληλοσυγκρουόμενες φατρίες που άρχισαν να εξαντλούν τους φυσικούς πόρους, η αιματηρή θρησκευτική κουλτούρα που επικράτησε λόγω της διαρκούς πολεμικής κατάστασης, ίσως κάποια από αυτά ή όλα αυτά μαζί να οδήγησαν σε μη αναστρέψιμη οικολογική καταστροφή και σε post-apocalyptic συνθήκες που έκαναν την επιβίωση στο νησί ολοκληρωτικά αδύνατη. Το ερώτημα του Κήγκαν είναι: που ταιριάζει σε αυτή την περίπτωση η ρήση του Κλαούζεβιτς περί πολέμου και πολιτικής αφού η κουλτούρα θανάτου που αναδείχθηκε από τον συγκεκριμένο πολιτισμό και επομένως η πολιτική, δεν είχε κανένα ρόλο; Το σημαντικό είναι ότι δεν μπορεί να προσδιοριστεί με ακρίβεια ο λόγος που ώθησε τη συγκεκριμένη κοινωνία να ξεκινήσει τον πόλεμο μέχρι τον πλήρη αφανισμό της. Σε έναν απομονωμένο και περιορισμένο τόπο όπως η Νήσος του Πάσχα, η παραμικρή διαταραχή μπορεί να έχει σοβαρές πολιτικές συνέπειες. Και η πολιτική όπως γνωρίζουμε πολύ καλά από αναρίθμητο πλήθος περιπτώσεων, δεν είναι αλάνθαστη. Αυτός όμως είναι ένας πολύ περιορισμένος ορισμός της πολιτικής που αφορά μόνο τις διαχειριστικές αποφάσεις των πολιτικών ανδρών, ενώ ο Κλαούζεβιτς χρησιμοποιεί τον όρο πολιτική για να υποδηλώσει κυρίως τις διεθνείς σχέσεις κρατών μέσα σε βεστφαλιανού τύπου γεωπολιτικές συνθήκες ισορροπίας δυνάμεων, γενικά το παιχνίδι κυριαρχίας που διεξάγεται μεταξύ αντίπαλων συμφερόντων.
Για τον Κήγκαν ο Κλαούζεβιτς είναι υπεύθυνος για τους δύο παγκόσμιους πολέμους, αφού όλοι οι μαζικοί στρατοί της δεύτερης βιομηχανικής επανάστασης και μετά, οργανώθηκαν και εκπαιδεύτηκαν με βάση τις αξίες του για την αποφασιστική μάχη και την πολιτική υπεροχή την οποία είναι δυνατό να εξασφαλίσουν οι ολοκληρωτικοί πόλεμοι των εθνών. Τον βρίσκει ακόμη, αμοραλιστή επειδή η πρωσική του κυνικότητα του επέτρεψε να εξομοιώσει τον πόλεμο με την ύψιστη πολιτισμική κατάκτηση την οποία υποτίθεται ότι αντιπροσωπεύει η πολιτική και τον κατηγορεί έμμεσα ακόμη και για τη διάλυση της αποικιοκρατίας, επειδή με τη σκέψη του την απογύμνωσε από κάθε ηθικό έρεισμα απολογητικής, υποκριτικά στηριγμένης στον υποτιθέμενο εκπολιτισμό των άγριων (εδώ πάει εντελώς για πέταμα ο
Πολιτισμός του Νηλ Φέργκιουσον).
Ως γνήσιος Αγγλοσάξωνας ήλπισε πως στο μέλλον (στο σήμερα για μας) οι πόλεμοι θα μοιάζουν με τα διηγήματα του Κίπλινγκ, εκεί που η πολιτική των κανονιοφόρων θα υποτάσσει τους άγριους όχλους βαρβάρων και τελικά μοιάζει να ξαναγράφει την ιστορία στηριγμένος στην πολιτισμική διαφοροποίηση των λαών (νομίζω την ίδια περίοδο κυκλοφόρησε και εκείνο το ανεκδιήγητο
Η σύγκρουση των πολιτισμών του Χάντινγκτον). Η "Ιστορία του πολέμου" παρά το γεγονός ότι πρόκειται για ένα από τα λίγα βιβλία στη διεθνή ιστοριογραφία στο οποίο ο πόλεμος εξετάζεται ως κεντρικό κοινωνικό θέμα (σίγουρα δεν είναι το καλύτερο, γι' αυτό κοιτάξτε στον Μάικλ Χάουαρντ και τον
Ρόλο του πολέμου στη νεότερη ευρωπαϊκή ιστορία ή στον Ουίλιαμ Χάρντι Μακνήλ και το
Επιδιώκοντας την ισχύ), και παρά την προφανή -και καθόλα αρνητική- επίδραση που είχε στη διεθνή πολιτική των προηγούμενων δύο δεκαετιών, είναι κατά βάση ένα μέτριο έρ��ο και ο κύριος λόγος γι' αυτό δεν είναι άλλος από τις βασικές πολιτικές τοποθετήσεις (κάτι μεταξύ neocon και neoliberal) του συγγραφέα του. Η αλήθεια πάντως, είναι ότι έχει μπόλικο ζουμί για διάβασμα και ακόμη περισσότερο για κριτική. -
Wow. Do not go head-to-head with this erudite military historian.
Sweeping in its range--from 6000 BC fertile crescent to Cold War mutually assured destruction; inclusive in its coverage--from the Manchu in North Korea to the Mamelukes in Egypt to the Yanomamo in Brazil; comprehensive in its topics--from stone to flesh to iron to fire. This is truly a history of warfare.
As a member of the military, I was introduced, taught to memorize, encouraged to stress, and told to believe the tenants of the putative father of warfare, Carl von Clausewitz. Clausewitz argues that warfare is 'the extension of politics by other means,' and John Keegan begins his History of Warfare by laying out the tools by which he will utterly destroy that thesis. Modern western military treats Clausewitzian theory as hallowed and consecrated as the Shroud of Turin. However, I've always had the sneaking suspicion that a single theory of warfare, held unequivocally, had to be in error. Keegan simply gives me the arguments to defend this suspicion of mine.
There's nothing incorrect about Clausewitz' theories. However, Keegan uses dozens of cultural examples of warfare to show that, instead of being universal, Clausewitz' theories are only appropriate to a certain time in history, specific to a particular kind of warfighter, and applicable to a unique set of resolves from the warring nations. Keegan makes a parting appeal to Western military not to fall victim to tenants of warfare that today seem immutable. These may merely be in favor to a Western way of warfare, but could change based on a number of events.
The take-away from this book is Keegan's methodical progress through the turning points in the history of warfare. He underscores the warfare utility of animal domestication, the chariot, fortifications, the warhorse, the phalanx, and gunpowder. He discusses the unique implications of culture on warfare technique, tactics, and procedures. Each warfighting organization was dominant in its time and area based on a unique set of guiding, cultural principles. The Zulus, the Magyars--Vikings, Spartans, Huns; the Roman legions, the British navy--Samurai, Aztec, Ottomans; all practiced a kind of warfare that was born of a logical accumulation of regional technology, culture, and exposure to adjacent warfighters. Meanwhile, Keegan's encyclopedic knowledge of all things warfare allows him to effortlessly draw parallels between cultures separated by thousands of years, and to find worthwhile links in strategy embodied by militaries as diverse from one another as Mongols and the US Confederacy, conquistidores and the German luftwaffe.
Keegan begins with an intriguing denial of Clausewitz, and seems to set this as his overall theme. However, he often writes for up to 50 pages without revisiting his theme. He offers a well written chronology of warfare, but rarely makes the connection between it and Clausewitz. I believe the book would have been more focused if Keegan's theme was mentioned within each chapter, or as he calls them, interludes. Instead, we have a history of warfare that begins and ends with a conversation about Clausewitz, but little reference in between. I'm left learning a lot about warfare, but without an overriding theme, the breadth of this book is too much for only 490+ pages. It ultimately reads as a glancing--though scholarly--review of the highlights of warfare.
4 stars for a balanced, skilled review of the fundamental movements of 8000 years of warfare. No more than 4 stars because this is the abridged Britannica of warfare, should have been longer or more focused, and could have been the seminal book to deny Clausewitz. -
A horrid book for two reasons. First, Keegen willfully misrepresents Clausewitz. Clausewitz argues that warfare takes place within a political context, and is, in fact completely defined by that political context: hence "war is a continuation of politics by another means". Keegan attacks Clausewitz for advocating warfare as a rational way for countries to settle their differences; a position that Clausewitz never takes, because Clausewitz is very clearly describing what is, no what should be. For Clausewitz, war is a tool of political leaders, albeit an especially dangerous and unpredictable one. Keegan's version of Clausewitz is incredibly skewed, which makes his frequent attacks on Clausewitz largely non-sensical.
Second, Keegan's own analysis of warfare relies heavily on his belief that warfare is the result of an outpouring of passion and emotion. Certainly emotion plays a role in warfare, both in the progress of particular battles and in the decision to go to war in the first place. But Keegan overstates his case, so much so that he cannot explain why peace ever breaks out. -
“The written history of the world is largely a history of warfare…”
Exhaustive but exhausting. Descriptive and informative, but not edifying. I didn’t enjoy this book, but I don’t regret reading it either. It was just too detailed and nonlinear for me.
“A civilized man, it might be said, is someone who has discovered something more satisfying than combat.”
Nevertheless, there were many interesting facts provided in the book: Aztecs used wooden swords and organized their battle tactics around the goal of taking captives; Egyptians oddly went to battle without armor; the average solider can carry about 70 pounds and needs about 3 pounds of food a day; Japan voluntarily retreated from the gunpowder age; there were cultural differences in “heroic display” (e.g., such displays were largely absent from horse people); Hitler, “the most dangerous war leader ever to have afflicted civilization,” was obsessed with Clausewitz.
“The facts of war are not cold. They burn with the heat of the fires of hell.”
The key takeaway from the book, I believe, is that Clausewitz was wrong; war is not simply the use of other means to continue policy. Rather, it reflects culture as much, if not more than, politics.
“The Tokugawa reaction proves how wrong [Clausewitz] was, demonstrating as it does so well the truth that war may be, among many other things, the perpetuation of a culture by its own means.”
Some Other Memorable Quotes:
“A world without armies—disciplined, obedient, law-abiding—would be uninhabitable.”
“There are grounds for believing that at last, after five thousand years of recorded warmaking, cultural and material changes may be working to inhibit man’s proclivity to take up arms.” -
Δεν έχω καλή γνώση του αντικειμένου για να μπορώ να συγκρίνω με έργα άλλων, για την ακρίβεια των πληροφοριών και των ιστορικών γεγονότων. Όμως ταξίδεψα σε όλον τον κόσμο και σε πολλούς αιώνες και γνώρισα μέσα από τις σελίδες του βιβλίου τον πόλεμο από τις τελετουργικές τελετές των πρωτόγονων έως τη λήξη του ψυχρού πολέμου του σήμερα και τον πόλεμο του Κόλπου.
Νοιώθω ότι πολλά τμήματα χρειάζεται να ξαναδιαβαστούν περισσότερες φορές. Από την άλλη όμως πήρα απαντήσεις ή τουλάχιστον κάποιες εξηγήσεις σχετικά με συμπεριφορές που συμβαίνουν ακόμα και σήμερα.
Σε κάθε περίπτωση ήταν εξαιρετικά ενδιαφέρον βιβλίο σχετικά με ένα φαινόμενο που δεν έχει εκλείψει ποτέ από την ιστορία οποιουδήποτε λαού είτε σαν γεγονός είτε σαν απειλή. -
Some of the most obfuscating, impenetrable prose I've ever come across. I read it in high school, and I remember at the time being half of the opinion that it was my own fault as an inexperienced reader. It was a much delayed vindication when I read Steven Pinker's guide to clear writing, 'The Sense of Style', where he uses this book as an example of ferociously confusing writing.
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I read this book back when it came out and picked it up again just to see if I'd find it as enlightening now, 20 years on, as I did when I first read it.
As an overview of the world history of war and conflict, Keegan does an admirable job. By necessity in a book in which large swaths of history are being described, any number of details and conflicts will be ignored or given short shrift. The particulars of African warfare are dealt with by describing the Zulu under Shaka, which makes as much sense as any other of the war leaders used as the paradigms to describe the "war as culture" theme Keegan strives for with this over-arching summary of human history. In many ways, his text is more "An Anthropology of Warfare" than a history of it. The author takes pains to describe the cultural values that those leaders represent in broader terms, the exceptional military leaders of the past become the paradigms through which his premise is presented. As a result, the book has all of the merits and some of the failings to which "Big Man" history often succumbs. Though he masters the strengths of that focus, Keegan appears generally unaware or unable to address the weaknesses. His focus on Shaka as the stand-in for African cultural warfare means that the lower intensity warfare of the centuries that precede the rise of that leader and the decline of centralization that came after get little attention in this book, though—given the "war as culture" theme—they really should be recognized as the backbone of his premise. Keegan does not ignore them entirely, but they are less spectacular and simply get less attention. It's hard to conclude, therefore, that his premise (that the methods and means of war are a function of culture rather than politics) is entirely substantiated. Culture is broader than those leaders, even if we take them as the proverbial tip of the spear rather than—probably more accurately—aberrations produced by cultures in crisis.
However, Keegan's real target is Carl Philipp Gottfried von Clausewitz and the dictum "War is a mere continuation of politics by other means." It is to refute that idea that the "war as culture" concept primarily functions in this book. Keegan acknowledges that his predecessor's thesis has been mistranslated from the original, often misinterpreted, and generally misapplied, but also holds von Clausewitz responsible for the extremes that those who used that term to justify their actions would go to in later centuries. How responsible von Clausewitz (or any theorist) actually is for those who used his language to justify their actions is highly debatable. The world is rife with philosophical constructs and pseudo-ethics that can be used to rationalize the full range of human behaviors. Nonetheless, Keegan is right in his assessment of the errors involved in both the original concept as von Clausewitz imagined it, and the thinking of those who took the idea to such absurd levels of intellectual depravity as to lead their nations into orgies of genocide, suicide and slaughter.
In doing so, Keegan gives a substantial, if necessarily limited, view of the cultural origins of warfare going back to its tribal manifestation up to the first Gulf War. The book is well worth reading for those who want an introduction to the study of the history of war on that basis alone. Keegan does occasionally struggle with his own preconceptions, but I'd argue less so than many other working historians, and we as readers can be perhaps more forgiving of his intellectual limitations than he is of others—particularly von Clausewitz. Likewise, we should take some of the historians that he quotes and references with skepticism. Victor Hanson, for instance, figures prominently among those Keegan cites, and it's clear that he more often than not agrees with his colleague. Hanson is a controversial figure on a number of levels, and having read a few of his books in the years between first reading A History of Warfare and this re-read, I have many more reservations about his ideas than Keegan appears to have had. So, if one is inclined to take certain components of this book with a grain of salt, there are sections where the salt needs to be applied more thickly.
In this reading, I'm less convinced that Keegan's reboot of "war is politics" into "war is culture" idea is substantially more valuable or less prone to twisting out of shape than von Clauswitz. Were the same powers of mistranslation, misinterpretation and rationalization applied to Keegan as he notes were applied to von Clauswitz, the results could very well be the same, and some future historian might pen a world history in which he presents a rival thesis to refute Keegan. Furthermore, in some respects the warnings that Keegan makes regarding the dangers of modern war, as well as his hopeful predictions for the future are problematic given the events in the years since this book was published. However, many of the fundamental ideas he expresses remain valid, and at the very least the idea that war is a product of the cultures that engage in it apply to his writing as well. Keegan is a product of his time—a brief hiatus after the fall of the Soviets and the constant state of low-grade conflict that is the post-9/11 international War on Terror. But those events don't necessarily invalidate his points. In fact, in many ways we can still see them as ideals that need to be expressed. -
Renowned military historian John Keegan succeeds admirably in the difficult task of providing a coherent narrative for humanity's age-old proclivity for armed conflict. From Assyrian charioteers to the advent of the machine gun and the world destroying potential of the nuclear age, this is something of a must-read for anyone baffled as to why, in the 21st century, we seem to be fighting just as many wars as we always did.
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I’m usually ambivalent toward single-volume histories of a topic, but this one hits the spot. Professorial without being didactic, really eye-opening paradigms. The difference between Indo-European and Turkic orders of battle clarifies so many encounters.
Slightly dated by its insistence that with the fall of the USSR, war is on its way out. -
Keegan is still the preeminent military history, and in this grand and sprawling book he attempts a synthetic history of warfare from the pre-historic dawn to the atomic age. Boldly staking a claim that Clausewitz's famous epigram "war is the continuation of politics by other means" is substantially misguided, a parallel to Marx's misguided grand theory of history, he instead provides a tour through four different types of warfare that is a lot of fun, but on the whole not terribly convincing.
Keegan begins in pre-history. Although the anthropological record makes it difficult to draw precise conclusions about prehistorical warfare, the extinction of North American megafauna provides clear evidence that mankind was a deadly killer, while ancient burials of people killed by flint points indicates that these tools were used against humans. Anthropological studies of hunter-gatherers in the Amazon and Papua New Guinea reveal that violence is endemic, though war is carefully circumscribed by rituals and taboos that describe how violence can be escalated, and where its limits are. This war is typically an arranged skirmish with relatively flimsy ranged weapons which can be easily dodged, and is fought to avenge an insult or for the sheer joy of it.
The first military technology revolution was the combination of the composite bow and chariot, which along with bronze armor and weapons, made a small military elite truly invincible in combat, able to circle masses of foot-soldiers and pick them off at will. Cavalry replaced chariots, but the light missile cavalry solidified as one of the dominant military strategies on Earth, as waves of steppe nomads from the Scythians to the Mongols poured out from endless plains to raid settled lands, occasionally invading and supplanting the existing rulers. In Keegan's reading, steppe nomads fought war not to rule, but because they enjoyed war itself, and the plunder was more lucrative than trading. When they did conquer, as in Turkey, they set up microcosmic steppe camps in the center of their palaces.
Against the Oriental style of the steppe nomads, Keegan puts the Western style of the Greek phalanx and Roman legion, where armored infantry (and later heavy cavalry) sought a decisive clash of arms. The Western style was not without it's mysticism. Keegan suggests the Greeks sought to limit wars to battles which could be resolved quickly, on prearranged flat spaces, rather than lengthy campaigns to despoil the countryside. Rome raised infantry to an imperial power, while the Dark Ages successors were caught between precepts of Christian pacifism and feudal notions of honor.
Western and Oriental styles of war existed in uneasy equilibrium. Heavy infantry could not successful invade steppe lands, but nomadic forces required huge herds of remounts, and could not sustain themselves in settled territories. The fourth style of army, the gunpowder armies that developed from the mercenary companies of 15th central Europe into the royal regiments of new nation-states, were something different. Drill and technology combined the ranged firepower of nomads with the endurance of heavy infantry. Military discipline could be mastered in a matter of weeks, as opposed to a lifetime of training. Only in the Napoleonic Wars does Keegan see Clausewitz's unit of politics and warfare, as the French revolution mobilized the entire people for military purposes. The logic of mass mobilization reached its zenith in the total wars of the 20th century: the slaughter along the Western Front of WW1, the genocides and aerial bombings of WW2, and the atomic apocalypse of a future WW3.
Written in the wake of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the triumph of high-tech interventionism that the Gulf War, Keegan can't foresee the rise of terrorism and the endless 'hybrid wars' of the 21st century. And while the book is enjoyable, if so very Orientalist, Keegan's argument is weakened by the narrowness of his definition of politics, which seem to be something only states and ministers can engage in. Rather, a more expansive definition of politics (I like the "art of reconciling human aspirations") shows that organized violence, even in the absence of states, can be political, and that cannons speak when words cannot be reconciled. As much as he claims to banish a false 'grand theory', Keegan raises another one weakly grounded on culture, that does not bear much rigor. -
"Why do men fight?" I had picked this book up at random one day and opened it to find this question. Flicking through I saw that he delved into the debate about the Yanomamo, and Chagnon's extremely contested anthropological research in that community - concluding that this was an innately warlike people. This is an area that I find fascinating, so I put the book on my to-read list.
Keegan tackles Clausewitz's dictum, that war is the continuation of politics by other means (a reductive translation, as it happens). Most of the GR reviews of the book either take issue or agree with this aspect of it. But I was disappointed. Keegan's main interest is in the tactics, weapons and defensive constructions that people bring to the game when they fight. How culture affects the choices of said tactics, weapons etc. So it's not really about why people fight, but what they do once they find themselves on the battlefield. How can you tackle Clausewitz if you are not actually dealing with the decision-making path that leads to war?
Finally - gosh this is not an easy read. Really hard to pinpoint why. The prose is just dense and opaque. Most sentences are not as convuluted as this:
The means that general staffs had convinced governments would ensure peace and, if war broke out, bring victory - ever wider recruitment of men, ever costlier purchases of arms - had cancelled each other out.
But it gives an indication as to why you might get bogged down in his sentences (too bad I chose this as one of my "teach myself to speed read" books).
And it suffers from compression. An overview of wars, across history, and across the world, in 400 pages? So you get a description of Alexander vs Darius at Gaugamela, with the decisive manoevre summed up in two sentences. I didn't get it. Maybe a more knowledgeable military historian would.
But give the man his due. It is genuinely fascinating to learn about how war-making has developed over the centuries - most importantly, in overcoming soldiers' natural cowardice. It's not surprising that in pre-industrial times, as far back as we can trace in fact, people went into war not wanting to die, engaging tentatively then retreating if a decisive blow had not been struck, never fighting unto death. War was even ritualised to avoid excessive casualties. At some point soldiers were trained to throw themselves in overwhelming numbers against the enemy and fight until one or the other side won. Clearly a fearsome prospect to face on the battlefield and it's no surprise that this tactic became widely popular. Some peoples though were slower than others in adopting it. -
I wanted to understand how and why warfare changed during different eras. Sure, some of the reasons are technological (like the invention of machine gun), but many were not: the phalanx or pikemen were not technological but organizational advances.
And I think this book mostly delivered. Keegan neatly illustrates how traditional way of doing war (what he calls "primitive warfare") has ritualistic aspects, one-on-one fighting, and mostly focuses on living to fight another day. The Greeks were so feared soldiers, because they were the first ones to start fighting as one unit, and fighting to the death. This was new and extremely scary. In earlier times, armies usually withdrew if they weren't sure they were going to win the battle: the hoplites attacked even when they were outnumbered. That had a crushing effect on the morale of their enemies.
The same pattern can be seen in later centuries, as well. Most soldiers in medieval times were mercenaries, who didn't want to risk their own hide unnecessarily. But the Muslim soldiers were fighting for something larger than themselves, so they were fearsome opponents.
Keegan goes on to show how bit by bit different armies learned how to make their soldiers fight to the death, and how that ultimately resulted in the slaughter of World War I.
So I learned a lot. I also learned that Keegan really dislikes Clausewitz. Oh man, does he ramble about Clausewitz. Enough already about Clausewitz! We don't care about Clausewitz as much as you do, Keegan! NO MORE CLAUSEWITZ. -
Espectacular estudio (publicado a mediados de los 90's) sobre la guerra y su evolución. Solo por su erudicción, el esfuerzo de la cantidad de información sintetizada y las diversas perspectivas en torno a la guerra como fenómeno (político, social, cultural, antropológico), ya considero el texto es acreedor a la mayor puntuación.
Al igual que otros textos que abarcan espacios (temporales y temáticos) tan amplios, es posible encontrar algún error, imprecisión, elemento de fondo que hoy ha sido revisado y de diferente interpretación en la actualidad, y por supuesto, siempre cabe la posibilidad de discrepar con el autor en alguna perspectiva (quiénes defienden la postura frente a la teorización de Clausewitz encontrarían aquí mucho qué cuestionar). Pero como quiera que sea, no cualquiera está en condiciones de discrepar con un erudito como el Prof. Keegan, y en todo caso, no parece ser su tono el del pontífice, sino el del entendido que disfruta de compartir su conocimiento.
Muchísima información relevante, y lo que más rescataría, es la manera como el texto (largo, profuso, por momentos/pasajes un poco denso) permite identificar la lógica detrás de la evolución de la guerra: un fenómeno terrible en la historia de la humanidad, y con una naturaleza que muchas veces pareciera carecer de lógica... hasta que encuentras textos como el del Prof. Keegan. -
Keegan's "A History of Warfare" is a superb book. It works well as a valuable addition for any military historian, as well as serving as a great "primer" to the vast scope of military history.
Keegan traces war throughout human history. He seems to take particular affront to Clausewitzian theory which postulates "war is a continuation of policy by other means" and then goes on to show how a variety of societies and structures have taken to war for reasons outside of politics. As an aside, I find it fair to point out the Clausweitz quote, though popular, is an ENGLISH translation. The actual words uttered by Clausewitz spoke of war as the continuation of "political intercourse" (des politischen Verkehrs) "with the intermixing of other means" (mit Einmischung anderer Mittel) and, IMHO, the original German gives the quote its deserved nuance and makes it a more subtle and complex idea than the far more frequently quoted English version.
Keegan looks at war as a culture through analysis of the natives of Easter Island, The Zulus, the Mamelukes and the Samurai. An interesting aside is the commonality of conflict/war even in socieites leftist historians would promote as "peaceful" (ie, Easter Island).
The book then look at various cultures of different military technology. He starts with the Stone Age technologies such as the Yanomamo of the Brazilian rainforest to the Maoris.
The stone section also looks at the development of the pastoralist society vs nomadic. It is a great survey and a look at the different tech and how it evolves.
Keegan goes on to look at military history and warfare as it develops throughout the various epochs. A great book that will introduce people to some very interesting ideas and give the basis for many concepts- such as the rise of Feudalism:
"....Earlier Frankish kings, like the other barbarian rulers, had maintained as the military core of their retinues groups of chosen warriors who could be depended upon to fight bravely and on demand.....in the era of conquests the problem of how they were to be maintained did not arise......but once a kingdom acquired borders...the ruler's warriors required a steadier source of support than loot or temporary expropriation. The solution was to accomodate the members of the Germanic war band.....termed in the Latin comitatus..within the old Roman practice of the precarium, effectively the lease by which the cultivators tilled plots on the landowner's estate. In the days of the Roman empire's prosperity, a precarium had been held for money rent; as the disorders of the fifth and sixth centuries drove money out of circulation, the payment of rent gave way to the performance of services of various sorts.........gradually a ruler's followers, who already owed him a personal obligation and in return benefited from his patronage (patrocinium), to translate the relationship into one where military service was returned for patronal favour, but the patrocinium was expressed by the grant of a precarium. The relationship suited both parties: the vassal (from the Celtic word for dependant) received a means of livelihood; "the ruler was assured of his military services; and the bond between the two was sealed by the performance of an act of homage which, when Christianised by the intervention of the Church, became known as the oath of faithfulness or "fealty".....this arrangement became known as feudalism (from the beneficiary feudum, or fief, that the patron grants to the vassal)....."
If that wasn't to your liking, then this is not the book for you. If, however, you were interested-then you will truly enjoy this book as it traces the development of warfare throughout the ages and the key technologies that changed them. -
Egyszerűen nincs pofám nem öt csillagot adni, pedig néhol leegyszerűsítőnek éreztem Keegan megállapításait – de végtére is egy ilyen nagy szándékú összefoglaló munka törvényszerűen egyszerűsít, hogy jobban csússzon a szöveg. És hát ez a könyv annyira alap, ha a hadtudományról van szó, és annyira mázli, hogy egy ilyen kiváló pedagógus írta meg, hogy fokozottan hálás vagyok érte. Keegan áttekinti a hadászat fejlődését onnantól kezdve, hogy mamuttrágyával hajigáltuk egymást a bizsergető tavaszi alkonyatban – egészen a hidrogénbombáig. (Most merje valaki mondani, hogy nincs fejlődés…) Szemet gyönyörködtető az ív, amit belevisz a történetbe – nem puszta kronológiai felsorolásról van itt szó, hanem logikusan felépített ok-okozati viszonyokról. Bravúrosan kezeli azt, hogy 1.) sokrétű problémakörről van itt szó, amelynek szálait szinte lehetetlennek tűnik egyetlen ívben áttekinteni – ennek okáért külön „közjátékokban” foglalkozik a hadtudomány olyan járulékos, de nem megkerülhető elemeivel, mint az erődépítés vagy a hadtápvonalak 2.) a könyvben tárgyalt események térben és időben elképesztően szórtan helyezkednek el, és előfordulhat, hogy amíg a bolygó egyik felén a hadtudomány forradalmian új alkalmazása (a lőpor, teszem azt) már leváltotta elődjét, addig a bolygó másik felén ugyanezen előd éppen most készül elérni zenitjét. Hogy ebbe ne gabalyodjunk bele, Keegan nagyon okosan függeszti fel a szoros értelemben vett időrendet.
Amúgy meg ez a munka vállaltan Clausewitz kritikája – cáfolata annak, hogy a „háború a politika folytatása más eszközökkel”. Keegan szerint ugyanis a háború sokkal inkább a politika kudarca, hiszen a politika célja nem lehet a tágabb értelemben vett politika intézményeinek felszámolása* – viszont amikor a clausewitz-i doktrínát követve a „valóságos háborút” az „abszolút háború” felé közelítjük (ami egy eufemizmus arra, hogy a földre hozzuk a poklot), akkor a modern fegyverrendszereknek hála tulajdonképpen mindennek az elpusztítására törekszünk, beleértve a politikai intézményeket is. Meg aztán Clausewitz fejtegetései során annyira nyugat-központú, hogy észre sem veszi, saját elmélete nem univerzálható – a nem-európai népek ugyanis sajátos kulturális tényezőiknek hála teljesen más stratégiákat építettek ki maguknak.
* A „tágabb értelemben vett” kitétel azért fontos, mert a saját szemünkkel is láthatjuk, hogy a politika ugyanakkor sajna minden további nélkül törekedhet arra, hogy a szűkebb értelemben vett politikát (vö.: demokratikus intézmények) felszámolja. -
Keegan is probably the best military historian and certainly the best military-history author for non-warriors. Here, he recounts in amazing detail the evolution of warfare from primitive tribes to present day. Plot spoiler: this is NOT a story of evolving technology, but rather a story of evolving cultures with ethics and rituals that shaped their approach to war and warriors. Technology plays its role: the composite bow, selective breeding of horses, fortified cities, gunpowder, but the societies that adopt or reject the changes do so for much more complex psychological and cultural reasons. Keegan's understanding of these cultures is unrivaled. His prose is dense and rich to the point where the book feels as though it could be twice as long; every sentence is packed with multiple ideas that take time to process. This is not a fast read.
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I thought it was decent, but not exactly what I had hoped for/expected? The book is a bit less structured and chronological than I might have liked -- it mostly is, but it tends to jump around a fair bit.
Also, he really needs to cool it with the Clausewitz stuff. I totally get that he doesn't agree with his premise, but it feels like he has made it his singular mission to refute Clausewitz's arguments. Felt like a weird vendetta. One thing in particular that bothered me about his focus on it was that he seemed to just be focussed on refuting the core sentence of Clausewitz's argument (war is a continuation of politics by other means). I haven't read On War, but I assume that he elaborates quite a bit on what he means by that sentence, which is something that Keegan doesn't really dive into. I felt like it was 90% a good history of warfare, and 10% Keegan out to get Clausewitz. Not saying that he didn't make good points, but I feel like he should have just made that another book or something.
For many people reading this book, like me, this is one of my first exposures to military history. I'm not particularly interested in arguments about theory, I just wanted to know about the evolutions in weapons, tactics, strategy, logistics, etc etc over time. The book mostly delivered that, but I think in a bit more muddled of a form than I would have liked. (less) -
Definitely not an easy book, Keegan did his work and he wants you to know that. He is not a fan of Clausewitz's ideas, and a large part of the book focuses on counterarguments to Clausewitz's ideas, Keegan draws on many counterexamples where war is not a continuation of politics with other means (ritualistic war - marauding war, the Zulu style where politics became the continuation of continuous warfare, etc., pp.). A large part of the beginning of the book is reserved to show how Clausewitz's ideas are not general and are much more a product of Clausewitz's upbringing and indoctrination from the Prussian military system (where war was, mostly, seen as a continuation of politics, which to Keegan is rather rare in human history).
After that it becomes a proper straightforward history, starting with prehistoric societies, the Greeks, then the Roman empire etc. pp., over the World Wars to today's nuclear threat (nuclear war is also not Clausewitzian war as it is the end of politics). It is all tremendously well-researched and dense - the role of war in the creation of borders and nationstates is discussed (the invention of cannons made forts necessary, which is then where borders settled), there's an entire subchapter on the importance of transport and logistics in wartime, how the structure of armies changed over time, and so on. It's all here.
His writing at times reminded me of German, very, very long sentences with many subordinate clauses:
With an officer corps of the quality represented by Ligustinus, formed of men whose life was soldiering, who entertained no expectation of rising into the governing class, and whose ambitions were entirely limited to those of success within what could be perceived, for the first time in history, as an esteemed and self-sufficient profession, it is not surprising that Rome’s boundaries came to be extended from the Atlantic to the Caucasus; it succeeded, by whatever means, in transforming the warrior ethos of a small city state into a true military culture, an entirely novel Weltanschauung, one shared by the highest and the lowest levels of Roman society, but rooted in and expressed through the values of a separate and subordinate corporation of specialists.
See? Not the stuff you read at the beach.
Bonus-quote on 'non-white' Roman soldiers, which caused a bit of a fuss on the more boring parts of the Internet recently:
In a remarkable survey that was made of the careers of ten Roman soldiers who died in the service of the empire during the first two centuries AD, as revealed by their gravestones, we find a cavalryman from Mauritania (modern Morocco) who died on Hadrian’s Wall; the standard-bearer of the II Legio Augusta, born at Lyon, who died in Wales; a centurion of the X Legio Gemina, born at Bologna, who was killed in Germany at the disaster of the Teutoburg forest; a veteran of the same legion born near the headwaters of the Rhine, who died on the Danube at modern Budapest; and a legionary of the II Legio Adiutrix, born in modern Austria, who died at Alexandria.57 Perhaps the most touching of funerary records that show how widely the legions were recruited comes from the gravestones of a wife and her soldier husband found at opposite ends of Hadrian’s Wall: she was a local girl; he had been born in Roman Syria. -
It all starts with the great Clausewitzian statement that war is the continuation of politics by other means.
Keegan spends 500 exhaustive pages thoroughly and methodically demolishing that supposition. By exploring every form of warfare from ceremonial tribal forms of battle all the way through modern Mutually Assured Destruction, he argues that for most of human history, warfare is characterized by ritual, caution, aversion, and brevity.
It is only the specifically modern, western forms of warfare that inherit the especially toxic combination of ideologically-driven, face-to-face combat with the fruits of technological development. Modern western warfare is thus the lethal continuation of politics, total war, but it is peculiar for all that.
While the work is interesting for its sweeping analysis of the forms of combat throughout history, it's difficult to stay engaged in the work when you don't have much investment in Clausewitz, as one imagines members of modern officer corps might. -
Keegan is one of the very best warfare historians writing today. In this history, as the book jacket's summary succinctly puts it he attempts to, "offer a sweeping view of the place of warfare in human culture and a brilliant exposition of the human impulse towards violence." He begins by presenting a broad view of warfare throughout history from the Bronze Age forward, its styles, changes, etc. Then he takes on the idea that war is an extension of politics and controlled by politicians. He claims the reverse that war and the existence and influence of armies and soldiers distorts the nature of culture and politics. He argues that war even at times shapes culture and politics in a way that results in disaster and the failure politics and diplomacy.
The book unleashed great controversy. I do not agree with this assessment as a statement of fact, but would just note that he says "sometimes" war shapes culture and politics and results in failures of politics and diplomacy--not "always." In some cases I believe it does, such as in the Vietnam war. It depends... -
This is a book to studied and to be read more than once. Keegan makes the case that we will eventually just plain, damn outgrow war much as children outgrow diapers. Keegan equates war with other infantile behavior like slavery and human sacrifice. Keegan takes his time coming to his conclusion. He first has to sail round the world and across the centuries to document the different types of warfare (it is likely that people from all societies are taken aback by the word "types") ; I believe that he lists eight types. Although war IS childish and insane it is important and it has shaped our history. Keegan dissects war much like an anthropologist would analyze the various religions of the world. His argument is that it is not something that we HAVE to do or that has any basis in rationality, it is something that we have done and will continue until we, at last, outgrow it. I like John Keegan. I have read several of his books.
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This book tries to cover a lot of territory from ancient tribal warfare to the nuclear bomb and post colonial rebellions. The book looks at social and technological aspects of warfare. Its long chapters with titles such as Stone, Flesh, Iron, and Fire loosely center around those topics. It is nearly impossible to separate them from one another.
The big takeaway from the book for me is how limited war really is. We put social limits on war such as not allowing women and children to participate. (Yes, there are exceptions.) There are technological limits such as how accurate a firearm can be. And there are logistical limits based on how can an army keep its fighters supplied with food, water, and munitions.
Of particular interest to me were the social and logistical limits. In primitive societies, it seems war is very ritualized and limited as to when, where, and how it is fought. Thus large scale death is avoided. Logistical limits seemed to limit the size of any fast growing, large scale empire such as the Huns or Alexander the Greats movement. It was also interesting to see how these limits can be somewhat thwarted, at least for a time, by the willingness of combatants to fight such as the Confederacy holding out against the United States in the American Civil War.
The only problem I had with the book was largely my own expectations. I would expect it go to go one way, and it would go another. Therefore, I was struggling with the text. I normally embrace this kind of challenge to my thinking, but for some reason, it just irritated me. I think I felt as if I was missing some important information. This book could have easily been twice the length and still not have been comprehensive enough for me. Maybe that was the real challenge I had with the book.
If you are interested in learning more about war, I would recommend this book. -
Todella, siis todella kattava kuvaus sodan historiasta. Kirjassa käsitellään sotaa yhteiskunnallisena ja kulttuurillisena ilmiönä historian saatossa, mutta myös sodankäynnin tapoja ja taktiikoita ja nyansseja alkaen logistiikasta linnoituksiin ja tykeistä nuijiin. Kirja oli niin tiiviisti pakattu täyteen tietoa, että lukeminen oli melko raskasta. Tällaiselle kirjalle sitä ei tosin voine lukea negatiiviseksi ominaisuudeksi. Kirja oli myös jossain määrin antiteesi Clausewitzille, mikä meni itseltäni aika lahjakkasti ohi kun en ole itse Clausewitzia lukenut. Suosittelen jos sodankäynti kiinnostaa.
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J'ai adoré. En plus l'auteur à un nom de famille légendaire.
