Ripples of Battle: How Wars of the Past Still Determine How We Fight, How We Live, and How We ThinkThe effects of war refuse to remain local: they persist through the centuries, sometimes in unlikely ways far removed from the military arena. In Ripples of Battle, the acclaimed historian Victor Davis Hanson weaves wide-ranging military and cultural history with his unparalleled gift for battle narrative as he illuminates the centrality of war in the human experience. The Athenian defeat at Delium in 424 BC brought tactical innovations to infantry fighting; it also assured the influence of the philosophy of Socrates, who fought well in the battle. Nearly twenty-three hundred years later, the carnage at Shiloh and the death of the brilliant Southern strategist Albert Sidney Johnson inspired a sense of fateful tragedy that would endure and stymie Southern culture for decades. The Northern victory would also bolster the reputation of William Tecumseh Sherman, and inspire Lew Wallace to pen the classic Ben Hur. And, perhaps most resonant for our time, the agony of Okinawa spurred the Japanese toward state-sanctioned suicide missions, a tactic so uncompromising and subversive, it haunts our view of non-Western combatants to this day. |
Contents
Okinawa April 1July 2 1945 | 19 |
CHAPTER 2 | 71 |
The Myth of the Lost Opportunity | 94 |
BenHur | 118 |
The Klansman | 143 |
Postmortem | 166 |
Euripides and the Rotting Dead | 185 |
Thespian Tragedies | 192 |
The Faces of Delium | 199 |
Socrates Slain? | 213 |
Beauty from the Dead | 228 |
What Was Delium? | 238 |
The Imprint of Battle | 244 |
Acknowledgments | 259 |
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Common terms and phrases
Albert Sidney Johnston Alcibiades American annihilation April assault Athenian Athens battle battle of Delium battlefield Beauregard Ben-Hur Boeotian bombing Bragg Buell campaign captured career carrier casualties century charge Civil civilians combat command Confederacy Confederate critical culture dead death decades defeat defense Delium division Donelson earlier enemy ensured entire Euripides fighting final fire fleet forces fought Grant Greek Halleck Hanson Hippocrates hoplites Hornet's Nest hundred infantry infantrymen island Japanese kamikazes killed Klan later Lew Wallace lost Marine miles military million Mississippi moral Nathan Bedford Forrest nearly Northern Okinawa ordered Pagondas Peloponnesian Peloponnesian War perhaps Persian phalanx philosopher pilots Pittsburg Landing planes Plato political purportedly rear retreat right wing ripples Sherman Shiloh ships Socrates soldiers South Southern Spartan suicide attacks suicide bombers survived tactics Tennessee River Theban Thebes Thespians thousands Thucydides troops Union Army veterans victory Wallace's Western wounded wrote Xenophon