Carnage and Culture: Landmark Battles in the Rise to Western Power [Paperback]

Examining nine landmark battles from ancient to modern times--from Salamis, where outnumbered Greeks devastated the slave army of Xerxes, to Cortes’s conquest of Mexico to the Tet offensive--Victor Davis Hanson explains why the armies of the West have been the most lethal and effective of any fighting forces in the world.

Looking beyond popular explanations such as geography or superior technology, Hanson argues that it is in fact Western culture and values–the tradition of dissent, the value placed on inventiveness and adaptation, the concept of citizenship–which have consistently produced superior arms and soldiers. Offering riveting battle narratives and a balanced perspective that avoids simple triumphalism, Carnage and Culture demonstrates how armies cannot be separated from the cultures that produce them and explains why an army produced by a free culture will always have the advantage.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 SoldierslCï