Ancient Greece never seemed to be a cohesive, united lot as each city-state focused on its own objectives. Alas, this led to the eventual end of the Golden Age of Athens, which always puzzled me. The Spartans were also intriguing, a society built around masculinity and warfare and the complete opposite of its sibling neighbour of Athens. Why did these two giants fight and what were the consequences?

Hanson provides a full chronology of the issues leading to battles won and lost and he also does a good job of helping the reader understand the politics behind it all. Athens, with all her liberality and genius, produced conformists as military leaders while Sparta, so closed within itself, bred generals of brilliance. As the Peloponnesian War progressed, Athenian citizens became mercenary and seemingly unaware they were no longer the center of the universe.

In a sense, it's a civil war which led to Alexander's Macedonian dominance and the future empire of Rome. The strong point of this book is how the author relates this ancient war to modern times. Are we re-living the same experience with different combatants today? Perhaps. It's a good read for those with an interest in ancient Greece and the politics that lead to conflict.

Perhaps war really is the father of us all.

Book Season = Autumn (squirrels vs. acorns)

I expected that I'd like this book. I thought it would be pretty good. Then I started reading it, and by the time I finished I realized it was great. I've read my handful of VDH, but this book is really right in his wheelhouse. A classicist by training, he hits this out of the park, but not necessarily in the way one would think. It is historically engrossing, and a very tight narrative, but more than that it is exceptionally moving. Because the Peloponnesian War is not examined merely from a strategic point of view, but more by examining the nitty gritty of the conflict, we see how it was fought from the perspective of those you fought it. In that regard, Thucydides is an excellent choice (in reality the only choice) for a primary source. He lived during the conflict, fought in it, and interviewed people from both side to better understand the brutality and tragedy of the conflict.

The Peloponnesian War pitted Athens and her empire against Sparta, Thebes, Syracuse, Corinth, and various other city states. Lasting 27 years (431-404 BC), it was, as VDH points out in the title, like no war before it. It was not short, or honorable, and lacked the moral clarity of previous conflicts. It was fought because fear and a desire for hegemony blotted out all over motives. Because this type of war was a new war, VDH walks us through specifically how it was fought. Sieges, hoplite warfare, trireme battles at sea, the necessity of horses, etc. We see the war from the ground, as if we stood in rank with the Mantineans as they marched to annihilation against Sparta's red-cloaked professionals in 418, or rowed in a trireme in Syracuse's Great Harbor as Athen's mission in Sicily was shattered in 413.

We meet many unforgettable characters, such as Pericles, Archidamus, Cleon, Nicias, Lysander, Demosthenes, Socrates (yes, that Socrates), and Alcibiades. Some were honorable men, while others were scoundrels and megalomaniacal killers.

Something that VDH does very well is placing this conflict in the greater scope of the story of ancient Greece. This conflict lies almost directly in the middle of the Persian wars of 490,480-79, and the Macedonian invasion of Greece in the 330s. How the former impacted the Peloponnesian War, and how the Peloponnesian War impacted the latter are critical details. Also, it has long been presumed that the Peloponnesian War marked the end of the Greek "Great Century," but when one looks at the excellent drama that was produced directly because of the war, how Platonic thought was influenced both by Socrate's and Plato's lives during the conflict, and how Thucydides's narrative was produced (as well as Xenophon's additions, as Thucydides narratives stops in 411), and finally when one examines the resurgence of culture in Athens following their defeat in 404, one must ask: would much of Greek history and the arts even exist without this war? It is not quite a counterfactual, but something that must be considered. I won't even get into the rise of Theban democracy--ultimately stemming from the war--that eventually dismantled a tyrannical Spartan state within 40 years.

All in all, a powerful book about a war that must be studied, as many conflicts in the subsequent 2400 years fall into pattern's very similar to the Peloponnesian War.

Una guerra tra superpotenze, forse la prima guerra civile occidentale, considerando la medesima matrice culturale e storica: Sparta contro Atene, 431-404 a.C., quasi trent'anni di guerra, imboscate, battaglie campali, scontri navali, epidemie, ma soprattutto assedi alle citta, massacri indiscriminati, incursioni, esecuzioni sommarie e atti di puro terrorismo (rimane impressa l'azione dei Traci inviati da Atene a Micalesso che macellarono tutti gli scolari della popolosa scuola elementare). Da una parte la oligarchica, reazionaria, militarista, capitale laconica, dall'altra la democratica, imperialista, progressiva Atene. Differenze diametrali, inconciliabili, che trovarono un terreno di tragica comunanza nella conduzione di una guerra che abbandonava ogni richiamo alla tradizionale ritualizzazione degli scontri che aveva caratterizzato il passato. Se nei secoli VII-VI a.C. lo scontro campale tra falangi oplitiche rappresentava la regola per la risoluzione relativamente cruenta delle dispute tra societa' ancora agricole, con la Guerra del Peloponneso si ebbe un deciso scarto verso la modernita' del conflitto, verso l'abbandono di ogni formalismo bellico a favore di scontri privi di regole militari ed etiche, caratterizzati spesso da una notevole asimmetria tra le forze in campo. Bellissimo libro e ancor meglio scritto e argomentato. Divulgazione storica di livello e qualita' assolutamente superiori.

Summary
Victor Davis Hanson tells the story of the Peloponnesian war which is the war where Sparta and Athens fought for close to 30 years. This war starts shortly after Sparta and Athens had united to repel a Persian invasion, partially depicted in the movie 300. Ironically, this war was ultimately decided by Persia backing Sparta which broke the Athenians. For many, this war marks the end of the Greek Golden age. Taking place shortly before Alexander the Great's campaigns, it included many Western superstars like Socrates, who participated in the early part of the war, Hippocrates, the father of medicine, and some of the eminent Greek tragedians like Sophocles and Euripides. Hanson recasts the Peloponnesian War as a Greek Civil War, because much like the American Civil War both sides shared language, culture, and many other inherited traditions, but they differed on governmental strategies. The Spartans are portrayed as being conservative oligarchs, while the Athenians were depicted as radical proponents of democracy. This difference in governing styles is often emphasized by Hanson, who uses it to explain the distinctive reactions of the two nation states to the challenges each in turn faced.
Thoughts
Hanson excels at setting the stage, making the job of seeing this slice of the Mediterranean easy. Sometimes feeling sweaty as you sympathize with a marching Hoplite Spartan soldier, wearing heavy bronze armor under a blazing sun in a windless valley, other times sympathizing with a sweaty Athenian oarsman in the bottom row of three rows, rowing for your life as your head is at "hip" level of the row of rowers above you. I am now realizing that you spend most of the time feeling sweaty and trying not to imagine what you would be smelling. Similar to one of those Triremes stuck in a doldrum, at times I felt like the book dragged under the sheer weight of Greek names and places, followed by the endless back and forth of attacks and retaliations. However, memorable events like the plague that ravaged Athens during a Spartan siege would breathe fresh air into the sails and we would be off again. One of my favorites of these memorable moments was the fascinating description of the siege on Plataea. The Peloponnesian War takes place at an interesting point in time where Greek siege craft technology had not caught up with Greek fortification technology. At this point there were no siege towers or torsion catapults. This detail means that the attackers were only left with ladders and rams as their siege weapons. Because of this in Plataea 400 defenders were able to hold off a sizeable Spartan army, even when they tried several other novel methods of breaching the city like tunneling, fire, and primitive chemical warfare. After these unsuccessful attempts the Spartan army gave up on a direct assault and built a wall around the entire city and then began the slow process of attrition. At one point during the siege two hundred and twelve men made a daring escape. Unfortunately, their success also meant that the number of the city defenders had been halved. In spite of such a stalwart resistance the city eventually fell when the remaining defenders became too exhausted to carry on. Layers of depth are added to this history by the larger-than-life characters like the Spartan general Brasidas and the romantic yet treacherous Alcibiades. Hanson extracts various morals from the historical events with varying degrees of success. While delving into "historical advice" for modern scenarios seems futile, as history rarely repeats itself identically, there appear to be general principles underscored in historical conflict that remain relevant across time. One such principle discussed by Hanson is the inherent self-preserving nature of nations, akin to living entities. When faced with existential threats, nations, much like individuals, may and often do swiftly abandon their principles to save themselves. One need not look too hard in history to find many reminders of this potentiality.

He really didn't have what I wanted. There were parts from this book that really helped my research but overall, he went off topic way too often!
Would loved for it to be more relevant and to the point. Your fancy comparisons were boring to read. But like I said, I got some cool stuff out of this book.

Sujet passionnant mais traité de façon brouillonne. Il y a une certaine confusion des événements et des dates. En plus, on n’explique pas le piège de Thucydide (trap). J’ai été fasciné par le degré de sophistication de l’Athènes du 5ème siècle avant JC et de voir l’évolution des formes de guerre de l’époque.

This was an excellent history by one America's best classicists. Helps to have read Thucydides first. Would recommend to anyone who enjoys history at all, not just ancient or military history

Interesting take on what amounted to the first major civil war of the Greek world. It's organized thematically, not chronologically. Good book if you've already got some background knowledge of the sociopolitical landscape of 5th-century Greece.

DNF

I enjoyed Hanson’s explanation of the Peloponnesian War. I previously read Thucydides in graduate school, and so having that context certainly helped me understand some of Hanson’s assertions here.

Hanson places much needed emphasis on the physics of the battlefield. Modern readers of the Peloponnesian War cannot intuit that the average Spartan or Athenian cavalryman was about 5’2’’ and 120 pounds, or that the normal hoplite warrior was only a bit more robust at 5’5’’ and 140 pounds. By way of comparison, a cavalryman fighting in the failed Sicilian campaign during the Peloponnesian Wars was about the average size of a 12-year-old boy in the 21st century.

He goes beyond this, though, to explain how physically and emotionally taxing it would be to serve as an oarsmen in the depths of an Athenian trireme, or to be ensconced in the hoplite panoply of bronze armor with the Corinthian helmet obscuring one’s vision and hearing during a frenzied phalanx battle. One major takeaway I had from this book was a reinforced sense of how little I understood about the actual mechanics of battle—both of land and at sea—in the ancient world because my interpretation of these events are always done through a modern prism.

As a final tidbit, Hanson de-emphasizes the hoplite warrior and his role in the Peloponnesian War. In the aggregate, much of the violence and bloodshed occurred in two theaters—naval warfare between opposing triremes and irregular warfare conducted by lightly-armored peltasts, slingers, scouts, and cavalrymen. There was a prevalent “cult of the hoplite” and the attendant phalanx formation in the literature of this period, but the actual set-piece battles that occurred between heavily-armored infantry were few and far between.

Highly recommended book for those interested in the roughly thirty-years war between Athens and Sparta.

This an amazing author. Im not just saying that because we have the same last name neither. Well researched & explained well. I suggest watching a short video on youtube aftwards for maps & examples. Will all click together.

I have read a lot about the Peloponnesian War and this is the best book to understand the operational and tactical level of the conflict. Really caused me to think about the war in a different context.