A History of Warfare

De: John Keegan

Narrado por: Frederick Davidson

Starting with the premise that all civilizations owe their origins to warmaking, Keegan probes the meanings, motivations, and methods underlying war in different societies over the course of more than two thousand years. Following the progress of human aggression in its full historical sweep, from the strangely ritualistic combat of Stone Age peoples to the warfare of mass destruction in the present age, his illuminating and lively narrative gives us all the world's great warrior cultures, including the Zulus, the samurai, and the horse peoples of the steppe, as well as the famed warmakers of the West. He shows why honor has always been accorded to the soldierly virtues, whatever the cultural context, and how war has maintained its singular hold on the imagination, reaching into "the most secret places of the human heart, places where self dissolves rational purpose, where pride reigns, where emotion is paramount, where instinct is king".©1993 John Keegan (P)1994 Blackstone Audiobooks

Reseñas de la Crítica

"A work of massive sweep...in which the resources of anthropology, ethnology, psychology, and history are drawn on in comprehensive but succinct synthesis to create what is perhaps the most remarkable study of warfare that has yet been written." (New York Times Book Review)

Definitely a history book

Very much a work of a history. If you enjoy learning a full history of warfare this is a great place to start. Just know this book is written by a historian and not a journalist. Therefore, it can be dry and difficult to get through some points. I would buy this book again and I will listen to it again.

A bit too general

This book was good. It is performed well. But, it is a general survey and a specialist will notice some over generalizations or inaccurate summaries/details. Not nearly as good as The Face of Battle or Six Armies in Normandy.

Evolutionary and godless perspective

Bad perspective, but has Some interesting insights and that is why I gave it 4 stars

FrederickDavidson reads more war

Frederick Davidson reads with his trademark velvet voice good war history. Fast paced history many be too much for those not already familiar with world history. Valuable information for more global perspective, albeit a bit heavier with Western history than rest of the world.

A Big Story to Tell

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.