Status
Available
Call number
Publication
Pimlico (1994), Paperback, 448 pages
Description
Examines the place of warfare in human culture and the human impulse toward violence.
User reviews
LibraryThing member whiteberg
Filled with useful information, exciting stories and strange paradoxes. Is really one long argument with Clausewitz about why war is NOT always a continuation of policy with other means, and why this outlook actually is a recipe for disaster. War is much more related to cultural matters than
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Clausewitz allowed. Show Less
LibraryThing member Newmans2001
Keegan has a unique insight, understanding and knowledge, from a point of view all too rare in the analysis of war and warriors. He makes numerous points very clearly that change my outlook and insight significantly. So many things in history we look at are viewed in a current context, and so many
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fail to look from the time perspective of the participant, but to look as it takes place over time and it place in development is most insightful. Show Less
LibraryThing member Sturgeon
A little too generalized history of warfare.
LibraryThing member Cecrow
By sheer coincidence I was halfway through this book when its author Sir John Keegan passed away on August 2nd. That lends a bit of extra weight to the care of my assessment. It's my first read of this author and I've no strong background in military history, although I'm a history buff in general
The author introduces the work with his declaration that there is a single warrior culture and the evolution of this culture constitutes the history of warfare. He challenges the classic (I gather) Clausewitz statement that war is "an extension of policy by other means." Poking holes in a theory said to be universal is relatively easy: you need only provide one counterexample. Keegan provides four for good measure. I'm not standing on firm enough ground with respect to the definitions of 'policy' and 'culture' to judge how convincing these examples are, although I understand the author didn't win a lot of converts among his peers.
Supporting his 'warrior culture' theory, the author observes that the warrior spirit distinguishes that culture within the larger social order surrounding it, characterized by its own motivations and rewards. But in the interlude section 'Armies,' "warriors" is only one among six types of army makeup that he defines. That seems to cost his argument, unless he meant to present these six as a spectrum rather than distinct categories, with a flavouring of warrior culture sprinkled across all of them.
Theories and their arguments aside, I was primarily reading for the historical overview. It isn't until halfway through the book that events begin receiving coverage in chronological order, presenting the dates and players of various battles. This is not really a narrative of what battles took place and when; it's the story of the evolution of warfare through scientific advance and its pairing with (or reflection of) developments and varieties in society and culture. Warfare as we understand it today began in Sumer, what we recognize as the first civilization. The author makes the observation that this is not merely coincidental, but that the capacity for bloody, campaign-style warfare is a key part of what produces a recognizable state. Animal domestication, metal-working, centralized government and a number of other advances identified with civilization were required before organized campaigns against political neighbours became possible.
It's implied that general historians are uncomfortable with according a central role to military history as a force in civilization's advance, and he seems to enjoy tweaking their noses about it. Natural evolutionary steps in how war was conducted, springing from cultural or economic advances, led to the rise of the war-making state and fed in turn the further development of those societies. Keegan asserts that "the legacy of the chariot was the war-making state." Of the dawning of the Iron Age, he writes "Had stone, bronze and horse remained the means by which war was fought ... [civilization] might never have evolved beyond pastoralism and primitive husbandry." Of the Romans: "Rome's principle contribution to mankind's understanding of how life may be made civilised was its institution of a disciplined and professional army." Of the crusaders: "In schooling the European knightly class to the disciplines of purposive war-making, they laid the basis for the rise of effective kingdoms."
Ancient civilizations (Egypt, Sumeria, etc.) were largely peaceful until conquered by their charioteer neighbours, who then adopted the local culture. The local culture in turn, after overthrowing these conquerors from within, adopted their conquerors' war-making methods in the new states that resulted (Egypt's New Kingdom, Assyria, etc.). It interested me to learn that horse-back riding followed chariots rather than the reverse; in retrospect I can see how this is the more logical progression. The author attributes a great deal of influence to the steppe peoples (Turks and Mongols) for introducing a more unrestrained approach to warfare that overrode influential primitive approaches where utter destructive conquest had rarely been the goal of armed confrontation. I would formerly have defined 'primitive' as inherently more violent, but Keegan argues convincingly that the earliest civilizations lacked motive or the power to conduct anything we would recognize as modern war.
I can see why it's called "A History" and not "The History", propelled as it is by conjecture (however well cited) formed around his direct challenge to Clausewitz. I'd have to read a lot more military history to determine whose side I'm on. Lacking that, I believe this work and its author are held in high enough general esteem - and there's so many great links drawn between various events and developments in this work of such vast scope, not to mention a wonderful conclusion - that it's well worth anyone's time to read who has even a general interest in the subject.
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so I could follow nearly every historical context and eagerly investigated the bits I didn't.The author introduces the work with his declaration that there is a single warrior culture and the evolution of this culture constitutes the history of warfare. He challenges the classic (I gather) Clausewitz statement that war is "an extension of policy by other means." Poking holes in a theory said to be universal is relatively easy: you need only provide one counterexample. Keegan provides four for good measure. I'm not standing on firm enough ground with respect to the definitions of 'policy' and 'culture' to judge how convincing these examples are, although I understand the author didn't win a lot of converts among his peers.
Supporting his 'warrior culture' theory, the author observes that the warrior spirit distinguishes that culture within the larger social order surrounding it, characterized by its own motivations and rewards. But in the interlude section 'Armies,' "warriors" is only one among six types of army makeup that he defines. That seems to cost his argument, unless he meant to present these six as a spectrum rather than distinct categories, with a flavouring of warrior culture sprinkled across all of them.
Theories and their arguments aside, I was primarily reading for the historical overview. It isn't until halfway through the book that events begin receiving coverage in chronological order, presenting the dates and players of various battles. This is not really a narrative of what battles took place and when; it's the story of the evolution of warfare through scientific advance and its pairing with (or reflection of) developments and varieties in society and culture. Warfare as we understand it today began in Sumer, what we recognize as the first civilization. The author makes the observation that this is not merely coincidental, but that the capacity for bloody, campaign-style warfare is a key part of what produces a recognizable state. Animal domestication, metal-working, centralized government and a number of other advances identified with civilization were required before organized campaigns against political neighbours became possible.
It's implied that general historians are uncomfortable with according a central role to military history as a force in civilization's advance, and he seems to enjoy tweaking their noses about it. Natural evolutionary steps in how war was conducted, springing from cultural or economic advances, led to the rise of the war-making state and fed in turn the further development of those societies. Keegan asserts that "the legacy of the chariot was the war-making state." Of the dawning of the Iron Age, he writes "Had stone, bronze and horse remained the means by which war was fought ... [civilization] might never have evolved beyond pastoralism and primitive husbandry." Of the Romans: "Rome's principle contribution to mankind's understanding of how life may be made civilised was its institution of a disciplined and professional army." Of the crusaders: "In schooling the European knightly class to the disciplines of purposive war-making, they laid the basis for the rise of effective kingdoms."
Ancient civilizations (Egypt, Sumeria, etc.) were largely peaceful until conquered by their charioteer neighbours, who then adopted the local culture. The local culture in turn, after overthrowing these conquerors from within, adopted their conquerors' war-making methods in the new states that resulted (Egypt's New Kingdom, Assyria, etc.). It interested me to learn that horse-back riding followed chariots rather than the reverse; in retrospect I can see how this is the more logical progression. The author attributes a great deal of influence to the steppe peoples (Turks and Mongols) for introducing a more unrestrained approach to warfare that overrode influential primitive approaches where utter destructive conquest had rarely been the goal of armed confrontation. I would formerly have defined 'primitive' as inherently more violent, but Keegan argues convincingly that the earliest civilizations lacked motive or the power to conduct anything we would recognize as modern war.
I can see why it's called "A History" and not "The History", propelled as it is by conjecture (however well cited) formed around his direct challenge to Clausewitz. I'd have to read a lot more military history to determine whose side I'm on. Lacking that, I believe this work and its author are held in high enough general esteem - and there's so many great links drawn between various events and developments in this work of such vast scope, not to mention a wonderful conclusion - that it's well worth anyone's time to read who has even a general interest in the subject.
Show Less
LibraryThing member maunder
Keegan's history traces warfare from pre-history through the Greeks and Romans to modern times and explores how tactics, strategies and equipment have changed. While the book is a little dry in places, it drives home the point that warfare as we know it is neither natural or an inevitable extension
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of politics as Clauswitz asserted. Total war in fact turns Clauswitz's premise on its ear because it is, in today's terms suicidal Show Less
LibraryThing member Fledgist
An overview of war in a variety of human societies.
LibraryThing member jamespurcell
Comprehensive, definitive and as always with a Keegan book; eminently readable.
LibraryThing member gmicksmith
Widely recognized as one of the seminal works on warfare Keegan does not disappoint here and he goes on a romp through history demonstrating its history. The work is indispensable for a contemporary understanding of warfare. Although very different in execution, Keegan's topic here is similar to
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the same ground covered by Max Boot. Show Less
LibraryThing member JeffV
Eminent Military Historian John Keegan does not endeavor to give us a chronology of wars and battles -- that has been done many times over by lesser authors. Instead, he begins with a look Clausowitz' On War, and expands on some of the German historian's fundamental concepts -- mostly that war is
The course of the book is a winding one -- while there is some marching order through time, Keegan will often take an example from stone age through Classical through Medieval to modern -- discussing Rome at one moment, Napoleon the next. Why there are wars is as important as studying the wars themselves -- especially if we ever hope to evolve past them.
This book was written after the first Gulf war. In the 20 years since, I wonder what additional commentary Keegan might have. While "mutually assured destruction" might have helped avert a third world war during the second half of the 20th centuries, conventional was are as numerous now as they ever have been. While damaging to the societies of the combatants as a whole, motivation and driving force is often a cult of personality where the few stand to profit the most.
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an extension of politics. The course of the book is a winding one -- while there is some marching order through time, Keegan will often take an example from stone age through Classical through Medieval to modern -- discussing Rome at one moment, Napoleon the next. Why there are wars is as important as studying the wars themselves -- especially if we ever hope to evolve past them.
This book was written after the first Gulf war. In the 20 years since, I wonder what additional commentary Keegan might have. While "mutually assured destruction" might have helped avert a third world war during the second half of the 20th centuries, conventional was are as numerous now as they ever have been. While damaging to the societies of the combatants as a whole, motivation and driving force is often a cult of personality where the few stand to profit the most.
Show Less
LibraryThing member keylawk
Keegan, "A History of Warfare" (1994). A military historian with an anthropological bent, labels his sections "Stone", "Flesh", "Iron", and "Fire".
From the first section, he asks "Why do Men Fight", and then examines various schools of explanation -- materialist, naturalist, religious, optimist,
He summarizes studies of the limbic system, finally resting upon the "enormously popular book", The Selfish Gene, by Richard Dawkins. He then turns to anthropology and theories of aggression drawn from case studies. Starting with Freud (noting that "Totem and Taboo"--the death drive and guilt-ignited aggression--"was a work of imagination", he advances to Robert Ardrey's elaboration of Lorenz' cooperative hunting societies and leadership studies. [81] Finally he falls upon the anthropologists with their kinship studies and reliance upon cooperation as the key, marginalizing the Social Darwinians who saw struggle as the means of change. [86] In a struggle to explain how a state could develop from family relationships, the nurture school demanded evidence that relations could be established by rational choices and fixed by legal forms. By the end of the 19th centuries, anthropologists were debating diffusionism and the search for origins, which is self-defeating, where all cultures have evolved and been altered. Franz Boas, a German immigrant to the United States, of course, ended that "originalist" debate by denying that it produces answers. Cultures perpetuate themselves; it's what they do. It is rarely rational. The academic doctrine of Cultural Determinism quickly became popular through the work of Ruth Benedict, a protégé of Boas. "Patterns of Culture" became the most influential work of anthropology ever written. Keenan then describes particular tribes -- Yanomamo, Aztec. All of this circling around the rocks, the hewed stone.
Then "Flesh". To be continued.
From the first section, he asks "Why do Men Fight", and then examines various schools of explanation -- materialist, naturalist, religious, optimist,
Show More
and even the 1986 Seville Statement which condemns the view that man is naturally violent. He summarizes studies of the limbic system, finally resting upon the "enormously popular book", The Selfish Gene, by Richard Dawkins. He then turns to anthropology and theories of aggression drawn from case studies. Starting with Freud (noting that "Totem and Taboo"--the death drive and guilt-ignited aggression--"was a work of imagination", he advances to Robert Ardrey's elaboration of Lorenz' cooperative hunting societies and leadership studies. [81] Finally he falls upon the anthropologists with their kinship studies and reliance upon cooperation as the key, marginalizing the Social Darwinians who saw struggle as the means of change. [86] In a struggle to explain how a state could develop from family relationships, the nurture school demanded evidence that relations could be established by rational choices and fixed by legal forms. By the end of the 19th centuries, anthropologists were debating diffusionism and the search for origins, which is self-defeating, where all cultures have evolved and been altered. Franz Boas, a German immigrant to the United States, of course, ended that "originalist" debate by denying that it produces answers. Cultures perpetuate themselves; it's what they do. It is rarely rational. The academic doctrine of Cultural Determinism quickly became popular through the work of Ruth Benedict, a protégé of Boas. "Patterns of Culture" became the most influential work of anthropology ever written. Keenan then describes particular tribes -- Yanomamo, Aztec. All of this circling around the rocks, the hewed stone.
Then "Flesh". To be continued.
Show Less
LibraryThing member antao
(Original Review, 2002-06-10)
There is easy rubbish and difficult trash. Of course, a lot of books with high literary merit will be more demanding for/ of the reader than, say, neckbiters, which are all fashioned by formula. But equalling the ease of a read with literary worthlessness would fail to
The perceived difficulty of a book has much to do with the abilities of the reader as a reader, and with their attitude to difficulty. Nobody likes to be told that he might be an inadequate, impatient or lazy reader, but 'difficult' books tend to flush out these types. The Booker in particular will always have problems with this issue, because it aims at a large readership. Many of those potential readers will expect to be entertained or distracted in an uncomplicated way by a 'good' book, and may feel when confronted by unexpected difficulty that some implied bargain between author and reader has been broken.
I am reading the book (being hugely fascinated by military history and military ethics) 'A History of Warfare; by John Keegan, (Cambridge, Sandhurst Proff) and it falls into the article's scope. The beginning wearing as he Clausewitzes his way along, crediting Claus wile also explaining his fallacy in using 'True War, and Real War' wile not understanding war outside of the European scope..... and it all gets fuzzy, dropping in a quick Kant theory and many examples of Zulus and Cossacks till a couple hours reading I get some vague feeling of where he is going, but it was a lot of work - and I know a couple paragraphs written in pub-talk level explanation would have made it all clear in a quarter of the words....
But the guy is a scholar, and every word has to mean neither more or less than it must, so on and on it goes when brevity and homily would work so much better for us hobbiest readers.
Now we need a parallel essay on the dangers of understanding too easily. Reader overconfidence is unexplored terrain.
There is easy rubbish and difficult trash. Of course, a lot of books with high literary merit will be more demanding for/ of the reader than, say, neckbiters, which are all fashioned by formula. But equalling the ease of a read with literary worthlessness would fail to
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acknowledge e.g., all those wonderful, amazing children's classics, which are as loved by readers as they are praised by critics. I feel there are two separate sets of judgements (and sometimes the twain will meet, and other times not): The objective-subjective critical judgement of literary merit by a learned and experienced critic, and the subjective judgement of any reader....The perceived difficulty of a book has much to do with the abilities of the reader as a reader, and with their attitude to difficulty. Nobody likes to be told that he might be an inadequate, impatient or lazy reader, but 'difficult' books tend to flush out these types. The Booker in particular will always have problems with this issue, because it aims at a large readership. Many of those potential readers will expect to be entertained or distracted in an uncomplicated way by a 'good' book, and may feel when confronted by unexpected difficulty that some implied bargain between author and reader has been broken.
I am reading the book (being hugely fascinated by military history and military ethics) 'A History of Warfare; by John Keegan, (Cambridge, Sandhurst Proff) and it falls into the article's scope. The beginning wearing as he Clausewitzes his way along, crediting Claus wile also explaining his fallacy in using 'True War, and Real War' wile not understanding war outside of the European scope..... and it all gets fuzzy, dropping in a quick Kant theory and many examples of Zulus and Cossacks till a couple hours reading I get some vague feeling of where he is going, but it was a lot of work - and I know a couple paragraphs written in pub-talk level explanation would have made it all clear in a quarter of the words....
But the guy is a scholar, and every word has to mean neither more or less than it must, so on and on it goes when brevity and homily would work so much better for us hobbiest readers.
Now we need a parallel essay on the dangers of understanding too easily. Reader overconfidence is unexplored terrain.
Show Less
Awards
Pol Roger Duff Cooper Prize (Winner — 1993)
501 Must-Read Books (Emma Beare, 2006) (History)
Language
Original publication date
1993
2014. España
Physical description
448 p.; 7.48 inches
ISBN
0712698507 / 9780712698504
Other editions
A History of Warfare by John Keegan (Paperback)