Calling Victor Davis Hanson: Best Classical Books on War and Translations
I am currently reading VDH's The Father of Us All: War and History--Ancient and Modern, a series of superb essays by Dr. Hanson on a variety of war-related topics.
In the course of reading these essays, Dr. Hanson refers to several seminal works from the classical world, most prominently Thucidydides Peloponnesian War, but also to Xenophon, Plutarch, and others, not to mention the great works of Greek theatre that comment on the issues flowing from these classical wars. So here's my two-part question. For those of us who wish to delve into some of these original writings, which are the essential texts (history, poetry, and drama) the amateur should begin with, and which are the best translations? I've read the Fagles translations of Homer's great works (and loved them), but have no clue (aside from Thucydides) which I should read, and which translators accurately and accessibly render the works into English.
And perhaps as a added bonus, give us the five best modern war memoirs (which I'm sure would include E.B. Sledge's memoir of Peleliu and Okinawa).
Can you give us some help?
Ricocheteer's comments are likewise solicited.
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Sep '10
Re: Calling Victor Davis Hanson: Best Classical Books on War and Translations
Go to the Teaching Company website and start raiding all of their Classics courses - they're quite extensive. It gives you some direction on the Classical world and decent syllabi with extra readings. Next, make sure you get every Landmark edition of the Classical works available -- and buy secondary works by historians who know how to write for the lay person -- VDH, Barry Strauss, John Hale, etc. Brits like Paul Cartledge are pretty pessimistic about the Greeks, but you always benefit from reading contrary works -- it strengthens your mind.
Sep '10
Re: Calling Victor Davis Hanson: Best Classical Books on War and Translations
I'm essentially on the same quest-- what I'm reading: "The Landmark Thucydides"; "The Persian Expedition" by Xenophon translated by Rex Warner, and Procopius' "History Of The Wars" translated by H.B. Dewling. And besides VDH's books, which are of course required reading, I think Stephen Pressfield's novel, "Gates Of Fire" is worth a look. Beyond those I'm looking for recommendations myself.
As for modern war memoirs, I'd recommend-- aside from "With The Old Breed" which must be on every list-- three from Vietnam: Tim O'Brien's, "If I Die In a Combat Zone", Caputo's, "A Rumor Of War," and John B. Nichols and Barrett Tillman's "On Yankee Station." (not a memoir, Christopher Robbins' book "The Ravens" should be on every list also, as well as Bernard Fall's books.)
From the Korean War: "The Korean War," by Matthew B. Ridgway, and "Colder Than Hell" by Joseph R. Owen. And the applicable portions of James Salter's masterpiece, "Burning The Days."
But the best military memoir I've read lately is Simon Murray's wonderful, "Legionnaire: Five Years In The French Foreign Legion."
WWII is whole nother can of worms...
Sep '10
Re: Calling Victor Davis Hanson: Best Classical Books on War and Translations
No one can beat the Richmond Lattimore translations of the Iliad and Odyssey.
Sep '10
Re: Calling Victor Davis Hanson: Best Classical Books on War and Translations
And of course you simply must read the translations by Wayne Ambler, Robert Bartlett et al of Xenophon's works under the Agora Editions published by Cornell University Press. I believe most of these authors were students of Boston University's Chrisopher Bruell and they are masterworks of insight for political statesmanship.
Nov '10
Re: Calling Victor Davis Hanson: Best Classical Books on War and Translations
I should add the following: Professor Sledge's sequel to With the Old Breed, which is China Marine; John Masters's two volumes of autobiography, Bugles and a Tiger and The Road Past Mandalay; the superb account of his war service with the Fourteenth Army by George MacDonald Fraser (author of the Flashman series), Quartered Safe Out Here; and, Lord Slim's accounts of his service - Defeat Into Victory and Unofficial History. All are enthralling and exceptionally well written.
Sep '10
Re: Calling Victor Davis Hanson: Best Classical Books on War and Translations
Love them all. I've been thinking about my WWII list, but first on it must be "Defeat Into Victory." A superb book. William Slim was what Monty wished he'd been. Still working on my list, but I'd mention Guy Sajer's "The Forgotten Soldier." Just for a look from the other side...
Dec '10
Re: Calling Victor Davis Hanson: Best Classical Books on War and Translations
I'd like to throw in a few first person accounts if I may.
The Forgotten Soldier by Guy Sager written by an Alsacian who served in the German Whermacht on the Eastern Front during WW II.
Horses Don't Fly is another extremely interesting account of a cowboy from Colorado who joins the RCAF trading his spurs in for wings during the First World War.
For readings concerning the study of Military History I'd recomend Makers of Modern Strategy: From Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age edited by Peter Paret, and John Lynn's Battle: A History of Combat and Culture from Ancient Greece to Modern America. If I'm not mistaken, I believe someone already pointed out VDH's Carnage & Culture. Lastly, John Keegan's Face of Battle.
Re: Calling Victor Davis Hanson: Best Classical Books on War and Translations
Five classical texts
Homer—I think the most literal and successful translations of the Iliad and the Odyssey remain those of Richmond Lattimore. No finer works in classical literature than the two Homeric epics. Achilles learns that the race goes not to the swift; Odysseus reminds us you can never keep a good man down—especially one that wants to get back to his family.
Thucydides—Robert Strassler's Landmark Thucydides (Crawley translation) is the most useful edition (confession I wrote the introduction, but the strength of the edition derives from the maps, footnotes, and headers and footers). The history is really a philosophical approach to war, peace—and timeless human nature.
Sophocles—Antigone and Oedipus Rex, of course, are essential to a classical reading list,but the under-appreciated Ajax andPhiloctetes (again, Lattimore's University of Chicago translations) are even more relevant to modern times (they read like Western epics, as in High Noon/the Searchers style).
Virgil Aeneid—Either the Fitzgerald or Fagles translation is fine—a great synthesis of ancient epic, national destiny, and the ambiguous position of the poet in the age of Augustus—and beautiful poetry whose lines permeate almost all of subsequent Western literature
Petronius, Satyricon—(Sullivan translation) a brilliant novel with a disturbing window into the decadence, sophistication, and multicultural world of Nero's Rome. His Bay of Naples reminds me of the upper West Side.
Edited on January 12, 2011 at 5:48amRe: Calling Victor Davis Hanson: Best Classical Books on War and Translations
Five Classic War memoirs
E.B. Sledge's With the Old Breed is a beautifully written, and often misunderstood, ode to the Marines of the Pacific; the chapter on Okinawa is horrific.
Erwin Rommel's Infantry Attacks about his experiences in WWI is not just a reflection on tactics and leadership, but the spirit of combat that assume the impossible is never impossible, one that later was manifested in North Africa.
Ted Morgan's My Battle of Algiers: a Memoir, recently publishing, is a candid, brutally honest account of the savagery of the war, that goes a long way to explain how, against odds, the French won the war on the ground, and quite understandably lost it politically.
Robert Graves, Goodbye to All That. Many have criticized some of the details (and facts) of Graves' classic account of WWI in the trenches, but it captures not just the horror but also the thinking that emerged that explains Europe in the postwar 1920s (hence the title).
Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman. Most prefer Grant's that are more concise and not cluttered with memos and orders, and personal slights and rivalries. But Sherman's is a philosophical analysis of war that separates the strutting and bombast of militarism from the hard science of logistics, strategy, and technology. He was a prophet of modern war and his memoirs make that clear. His exchanges with John Bell Hood are Thucydides, brilliantly argued and models of English prose.
Edited on January 12, 2011 at 5:53amAug '10
Re: Calling Victor Davis Hanson: Best Classical Books on War and Translations
The Dryden/Clough translation of Plutarch is very readable. For the most part Plutarch's Lives are about statesmanship rather than war, per se. Perhaps most of note for your interest is his "Life of Lycurgus," which is really about the national character of Sparta. It's a fascinating read because Plutarch admires Sparta but to us it sounds like a totalitarian nightmare where all sublimate any kind of human intimacy or compassion into devotion to the state.
Oct '10
Re: Calling Victor Davis Hanson: Best Classical Books on War and Translations
On the topic of insurgent warfare, I recommend Histories of the Hanged by David Anderson and Defeating Mau Mau, Creating Kenya by Daniel Branch, both of which examine Britain's victory over the Mau Mau insurgency in Kenya during the 1950s.
On that same subject, another account of the Algerian War worth reading is A Savage War of Peace by Alistair Horne.
Nov '10
Re: Calling Victor Davis Hanson: Best Classical Books on War and Translations
I have a special question for Mr. Hanson (not unrelated to the thread).
Thanks to popular culture, the public is generally aware that Ares is the God of War, and Athena is the Goddess of Wisdom. What is not so well known is that Ares is specifically the god of slaughter — of mindless bloodshed, and Athena does double duty as the goddess of rational warfare — cool-headed tactics and strategy.
Why did the patriarchal Greeks assign that role to a female deity? The sober, business-like Apollo would have been a perfectly logical choice for the part. And why did the Greeks make a distinction between two kinds of war?
Edited on January 12, 2011 at 7:57amMay '10
Re: Calling Victor Davis Hanson: Best Classical Books on War and Translations
Lady Kurobara: ...that Ares is specifically the god of slaughter — of mindless bloodshed, and Athena does double duty as the goddess of rational warfare — cool-headed tactics and strategy.
Why did the patriarchal Greeks assign that role to a female deity? And why did they make a distinction between two kinds of war? · Jan 11 at 10:45pm
My guess (though not being the perfesser; you may have noticed) is that it was political boosterism. "We practice a superior form of warfare, compared to these benighted clods, as exemplified by our patron goddess Athena." The portfolios of gods tend to be fluid over time, so that's what Athens made of her. It should be noted that the Romans, in addition to the cult of Mars, had their own state-sponsored goddess of war, Bellona. Goddesses of war aren't that uncommon generally. Never give Andrea a bayonet, for a start.
Nov '10
Re: Calling Victor Davis Hanson: Best Classical Books on War and Translations
I found Lattimore's Iliad and Odyssey extremely boring (and probably accurate - I wouldn't know.) Fagles is much, much more enjoyable for those of us who weren't classics majors.
Nov '10
Re: Calling Victor Davis Hanson: Best Classical Books on War and Translations
Kennedy Smith
Lady Kurobara: ...that Ares is specifically the god of slaughter — of mindless bloodshed, and Athena does double duty as the goddess of rational warfare — cool-headed tactics and strategy.
Why did the patriarchal Greeks assign that role to a female deity? And why did they make a distinction between two kinds of war?
My guess (though not being the perfesser; you may have noticed) is that it was political boosterism. "We practice a superior form of warfare, compared to these benighted clods, as exemplified by our patron goddess Athena." The portfolios of gods tend to be fluid over time, so that's what Athens made of her. It should be noted that the Romans, in addition to the cult of Mars, had their own state-sponsored goddess of war, Bellona. Goddesses of war aren't that uncommon generally. Never give Andrea a bayonet, for a start.
That sounds quite plausible. And you phrased it very charmingly, too.
May '10
Re: Calling Victor Davis Hanson: Best Classical Books on War and Translations
A practical military manual of the time that has escaped mention is Caesar's Commentaries (on the Gallic War). A detailed example of how to run a thorough campaign of conquest from beginning to end, with particular emphasis on the Roman specialty of siegecraft. In addition to influencing the military thinking of Rome, it was politically influential, being sent, Dickens-style, in periodic dispatches to the Senate in real time during the epoch-marking events of the Fall of the Republic and the Rise of Empire.
Never having read the whole thing, though, I imagine it's a long, hard slog.
Re: Calling Victor Davis Hanson: Best Classical Books on War and Translations
The only modern book I know of which is as good as Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War is Winston Churchill's Marlborough: His Life and Times. Written during the 1930s with the struggle for liberty in England and against Louis XIV as its focus, it was the work by means of which Churchill prepared to be Prime Minister and defend liberty in England against Hitler. It won him the Nobel Prize for Literature, and he deserved it. You can find it in print at the University of Chicago Press.
May '10
Re: Calling Victor Davis Hanson: Best Classical Books on War and Translations
I'm sure VDH doesn't have the time to put a course together, but I would pay big bucks (i.e. tuition) to have some kind of integrated text-reading/ lecture series by him on his list of recommended books. A course like Pseudo mentions, only written and taught by VDH. If I catch that leprechaun on my back hill that's my first wish.
Aug '10
Re: Calling Victor Davis Hanson: Best Classical Books on War and Translations
Those vile Imperial Athenians would have you believe that their patron goddess is representative of all things just and noble in war, whereas Ares is the god of slaughter and murder and mayhem.
It's propaganda rooted in praising one's own god at the expense of others'.
Aug '10
Re: Calling Victor Davis Hanson: Best Classical Books on War and Translations
I am going to assume that everyone here knows about The Gutenberg Project, which posts the text of public domain literature online.
Just in case you didn't know about it, here's the URL: http://www.gutenberg.org
It goes great with eReaders and iTablets (Android-based iTablets, for the discerning nerd, of course!).
Edited on January 12, 2011 at 5:25pm