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nghia's review against another edition
4.0
Hanson's A War Like No Other is an idiosyncratic take on the Peloponnesian War. Rather than a strictly chronological take on the major battles & personalities, it approaches each chapter with a theme on the major ways people died. So there's a chapter devoted to hoplite battle, sure. But also one on plague. It isn't completely without chronology -- the earlier chapters focus more on the early parts of the war and the later chapters on the later parts. But it does result in a fair amount of back & forth. I found it an interesting approach, though I think if I had a better grounding in the Peloponnesian War it would have worked better. All I really knew about it came from playing the boardgame Athens & Sparta once or twice.
So maybe better as a second book on the war? Or at least read the Wikipedia page first?
His "themes not chronology" approach breaks down a bit towards the end. The chapter on "horses" is really about Sicily, where siegecraft and naval battles are arguably just as important. The chapter on naval warfare is so big that is spills out into two chapters, with one of them being a more or less chronological telling of the final Spartan naval campaign.
While Hanson makes a credible case for the Big Man of History, especially Alcibiades, influencing events I liked that most of his focus was on big impersonal forces, like the Greek lack of cavalry or weak siegecraft in general at that point in history. Some will find the high-level treatment of famous battles and personalities off-putting and will be better served with another book.
Hanson also has occasional casual asides that I liked but others might not. For instance he (briefly) compares the coastal terror raiding of the Athenians & Spartans to modern terrorism. He talks about how one time he tried to cut down grape vines himself and discovered how hard -- nigh impossible -- it was. He mentions how even with modern ferries, tourists often become seasick in the waters around there -- so imagine how difficult it would have been to ferry horses 2,500 years ago. I liked these small touches. The overall effect was one of an author who has a facile grasp of the themes & events of the war and is able to seamlessly relate them to things outside and beyond the war itself.
So maybe better as a second book on the war? Or at least read the Wikipedia page first?
His "themes not chronology" approach breaks down a bit towards the end. The chapter on "horses" is really about Sicily, where siegecraft and naval battles are arguably just as important. The chapter on naval warfare is so big that is spills out into two chapters, with one of them being a more or less chronological telling of the final Spartan naval campaign.
While Hanson makes a credible case for the Big Man of History, especially Alcibiades, influencing events I liked that most of his focus was on big impersonal forces, like the Greek lack of cavalry or weak siegecraft in general at that point in history. Some will find the high-level treatment of famous battles and personalities off-putting and will be better served with another book.
Hanson also has occasional casual asides that I liked but others might not. For instance he (briefly) compares the coastal terror raiding of the Athenians & Spartans to modern terrorism. He talks about how one time he tried to cut down grape vines himself and discovered how hard -- nigh impossible -- it was. He mentions how even with modern ferries, tourists often become seasick in the waters around there -- so imagine how difficult it would have been to ferry horses 2,500 years ago. I liked these small touches. The overall effect was one of an author who has a facile grasp of the themes & events of the war and is able to seamlessly relate them to things outside and beyond the war itself.
bookshelf_from_mars's review against another edition
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
3.5
dbaker's review against another edition
3.0
I almost quit so many times in the first chapter. He seemed fixated on forcing uninteresting modern parallels and made a lot of problematic statements, such as harping on this being a "civil war" and insisting that Pericles didn't have a plan.
I'm glad I finished, because it was full of a lot of helpful information (big-picture trends and cultural background, etc). But throughout, it suffered from sloppy writing. E.g. three sentences building to a point, but then the use of the exactly opposite conjunction than was called for. I like grapes. They are healthy and affordable. They are easy to pack. Despite this, I eat them every day. Huh? This type of error happened a lot, and a few sentences were just absurdly misplaced.
He is - I think - pretty clearly writing for a popular audience that doesn't necessarily have Thucydides memorized. Yet though I get this wasn't a chronological story of the war, he does make odd assumptions that he can just reference a battle and expect the reader to have remembered, from other sources, all the details as he makes points that depend on that knowledge. Yet other battles are described in great detail. So all in all, an odd, mixed bag.
I'm glad I finished, because it was full of a lot of helpful information (big-picture trends and cultural background, etc). But throughout, it suffered from sloppy writing. E.g. three sentences building to a point, but then the use of the exactly opposite conjunction than was called for. I like grapes. They are healthy and affordable. They are easy to pack. Despite this, I eat them every day. Huh? This type of error happened a lot, and a few sentences were just absurdly misplaced.
He is - I think - pretty clearly writing for a popular audience that doesn't necessarily have Thucydides memorized. Yet though I get this wasn't a chronological story of the war, he does make odd assumptions that he can just reference a battle and expect the reader to have remembered, from other sources, all the details as he makes points that depend on that knowledge. Yet other battles are described in great detail. So all in all, an odd, mixed bag.
davidr's review against another edition
4.0
This book put ancient Greece into an entirely new light for me. The war was sporadic, but altogether lasted about 30 years. Athens was the great democracy, with a large empire of states it had conquered. Athens was the technologically superior Greek state. It relied on its advanced navy with better ships and better naval tactics. Sparta was autocratic, technologically backward, and relied on its heavy-duty infantry. Sparta also had a large number of allied states in Peloponnesia.
After a year or so into the war, a great plague hit ancient Greece very hard. Rural farmers immigrated into the city walls of Athens, which helped contribute to the high death rate in Athens. Just as many people died from disease, as from the war!
This is a history book like few others; it does not detail the war in a chronological fashion. Instead, each chapter describes a theme in some detail. A chapter on each of the city states, a chapter on infantry, on cavalry, on the navy, on slavery, tactics, torture, terrorism, and on politics. This helps to give an overall view of societies at the time. The author helps the reader to understand the concepts, by comparing the historical events in ancient Greece to better-known historical events in modern times. These analogies really helped my understanding of the attitudes and events in the history.
I didn't read this book; I listened to the audiobook version, narrated by Bob Souer. He reads the book very well, in a pleasant, straight-forward manner. Highly recommended!
After a year or so into the war, a great plague hit ancient Greece very hard. Rural farmers immigrated into the city walls of Athens, which helped contribute to the high death rate in Athens. Just as many people died from disease, as from the war!
This is a history book like few others; it does not detail the war in a chronological fashion. Instead, each chapter describes a theme in some detail. A chapter on each of the city states, a chapter on infantry, on cavalry, on the navy, on slavery, tactics, torture, terrorism, and on politics. This helps to give an overall view of societies at the time. The author helps the reader to understand the concepts, by comparing the historical events in ancient Greece to better-known historical events in modern times. These analogies really helped my understanding of the attitudes and events in the history.
I didn't read this book; I listened to the audiobook version, narrated by Bob Souer. He reads the book very well, in a pleasant, straight-forward manner. Highly recommended!
ghahn3's review against another edition
4.0
A good thematic history. Would have been better with less repetition.
stellathereader's review against another edition
3.0
He really didn't have what I wanted. There were parts from this book that really helped my research but overall, he went off topic way too often!
Would loved for it to be more relevant and to the point. Your fancy comparisons were boring to read. But like I said, I got some cool stuff out of this book.
Would loved for it to be more relevant and to the point. Your fancy comparisons were boring to read. But like I said, I got some cool stuff out of this book.
stellathereader's review
3.0
He really didn't have what I wanted. There were parts from this book that really helped my research but overall, he went off topic way too often!
Would loved for it to be more relevant and to the point. Your fancy comparisons were boring to read. But like I said, I got some cool stuff out of this book.
Would loved for it to be more relevant and to the point. Your fancy comparisons were boring to read. But like I said, I got some cool stuff out of this book.