The End of Everything

How Wars Descend into Annihilation

De: Victor Davis Hanson

Narrado por: Bob Souer

Duración: 10 h y 19 m

Resumen del Editor

A New York Times-bestselling historian charts how and why societies from ancient Greece to the modern era chose to utterly destroy their foes, and warns that similar wars of obliteration are possible in our time

War can settle disputes, topple tyrants, and bend the trajectory of civilization—sometimes to the breaking point. From Troy to Hiroshima, moments when war has ended in utter annihilation have reverberated through the centuries, signaling the end of political systems, cultures, and epochs. Though much has changed over the millennia, human nature remains the same. Modern societies are not immune from the horror of a war of extinction.

In The End of Everything, military historian Victor Davis Hanson narrates a series of sieges and sackings that span the age of antiquity to the conquest of the New World to show how societies descend into barbarism and obliteration. In the stories of Thebes, Carthage, Constantinople, and Tenochtitlan, he depicts war’s drama, violence, and folly. Highlighting the naivete that plagued the vanquished and the wrath that justified mass slaughter, Hanson delivers a sobering call to contemporary listeners to heed the lessons of obliteration lest we blunder into catastrophe once again.

©2024 Victor Davis Hanson (P)2024 Basic Books

Reseñas de la Crítica

“This stupendous book offers a gripping account of catastrophic defeat. Outstanding military historian Victor Davis Hanson takes us through four wars, each of which not only crushed an enemy but destroyed a civilization. Are we doomed to go the way of Thebes, Carthage, the Byzantines, or the Aztecs? To understand the challenges we face, you must read The End of Everything.”—Barry Strauss, author of The War that Made the Roman Empire

“What a paragon and a powerhouse is Hanson! The hymnal tells us of the fate of ‘Earth’s proud empires’ and the poet reminds us of what will happen to ‘our pomp of yesterday,’ yet it takes an historian of Hanson’s intellectual caliber to explain how and why civilizations are annihilated in war, with example after well-researched and cogently written example. As well as Hanson the historian, however, here too is Hanson the philosopher, with his insightful take on how human nature has failed to adapt to our ultra-technological age. Readers will be shocked quite how often total military, cultural, and societal extirpation happens in in our species’ story. We need to learn from this groundbreaking book how to stop it happening to us.”—Andrew Roberts, author of Churchill

“In recent years, we have witnessed man’s inhumanity toward man that many thought had been consigned to the distant past. In The End of Everything, Hanson tells compelling and harrowing stories of how civilizations perished. He helps us consider contemporary affairs in light of that history, think about the unthinkable, and recognize the urgency of trying to prevent our own demise.”—H. R. McMaster, author of Battlegrounds

Beginning of Light

VDH provides engaging history while pulling threads of distinction and similarity between these societies and their demise.

He provides foreshadowing to our current world to stay present - use a telescope and a microscope.

VDH is a treasure. Exceptional.

Too good to only listen to

I just began this long-awaited history and abruptly decided to return it. Not that there is anything wrong with the book but because it is rich and complex enough that I missed too much just listening. When my attention wavered for a few seconds here and there, I realized I missed important points. Plus, I wanted to stop and look things up.

Instead I'll buy a physical copy and read at my leisure.

Spot on analysis

Excellent historical perspective of civilizational collapse via military conquest. The application to todays world in the last chapter is sorely needed.

Another Hit

VDH did it again!
A great history lesson!
Let’s hope that America can learn from history.
Give this a listen.
I enjoyed it.

Short, sharp, informative.

The author presents concise historical chronologies without getting bogged down in details or being long-winded. Conclusions are clearly presented, well supported, and seamlessly tied to current events. There isn't an ounce of fat in this examination and I greatly appreciate it.

Very good, but a little too academic for me.

Very good, but a little too academic for me. Overall, it was a good book. Very good.

It filled in parts of history I did not know!

An excellent book. The historical information is excellent and he is careful to keep supposition separate from facts and observations. I highly recommend it.

Remarkable

In a world of such magnitude of conflict and threats and declining American leadership this may be the most important book we can study.

Interesting but rather limited in scope

The author explicitly states that the scope of the book is limited to the dynamics and variables of civilizations that were completely destroyed in war. He states this relatively early so that's fine. It's clear about what to expect but I think this study would have been more effective is the conclusion were referred to more explicitly in the introduction. The conclusion focuses on the same premise or potential in relation to current affairs. I just think it would have been more interesting throughout had the author stated observations on current affairs a bit more explicitly in the introduction so that the historical examples sided what would have illustrated more clearly the relation to current affairs throughout the reading of the book. Otherwise it's quite interesting and detailed