Carnage and Culture: Landmark Battles in the Rise of Western Power (66 page)

For Further Reading

Chapter One: Why the West Has Won

There is an entire genre of scholarship devoted to various explanations of Western military dominance, mostly from the sixteenth century onward. See most prominently C. Cipolla, Guns, Sails and Empires: Technological Innovation and the Early
Phases of European Expansionism
(Cambridge, 1965); M. Roberts,
The Military
Revolution, 1560–1660
(Belfast, 1956); G. Parker,
The Military Revolution: Military
Innovation and the Rise of the West, 1500–1800,
2nd ed. (Cambridge, 1996); J. Black,
A Military Revolution? Military Change and European Society, 1550–1800
(Basingstoke, England, 1991); P. Curtin, The World and the West: The European
Challenge and the Overseas Response in the Age of Empire
(Cambridge, 2000); D. Eltis, The Military Revolution in Sixteenth-Century Europe (New York, 1995); and C. Rodgers, ed.,
The Military Revolution Debate: Readings on the Military Transformation
of Early Modern Europe
(Boulder, Colo., 1995). For the argument of an even earlier military revolution, see A. Ayton and J. L. Price, eds., The Medieval Military
Revolution: State, Society, and Military Change in Medieval and Early Modern Europe
(New York, 1995).

For East-West contacts and exchanges of technology, see D. Ralston,
Importing
the European Army: The Introduction of European Military Techniques and Institutions
into the Extra-European World, 1600–1914 (Chicago, 1990); R. MacAdams, Paths of Fire: An Anthropologist’s Inquiry into Western Technology (Princeton, N.J., 1996); L. White,
Machina Ex Deo: Essays in the Dynamism of Western Culture
(Cambridge, Mass., 1968); and especially, D. Headrick,
Tools of Empire: Technology and European
Imperialism in the Nineteenth Century
(New York, 1981). The wider question of European cultural dynamism is covered brilliantly in two books: D. Landes,
The
Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some Are So Rich and Some So Poor
(New York, 1998), and E. L. Jones, The European Miracle: Environments, Economies, and
Geopolitics in the History of Europe and Asia
(Cambridge, 1987). See also the essays in L. Harrison and S. Huntington, eds., Culture Matters: How Values Shape Human
Progress
(New York, 2000).

A good discussion of the nature of Western culture and its critics in the university is found in three engaging works: K. Windshuttle, The Killing of History: How
Literary Critics and Social Theorists Are Murdering Our Past
(New York, 1996); A. Herman,
The Idea of Decline in Western History
(New York, 1997); and D. Gress,
From
Plato to NATO: The Idea of the West and Its Opponents
(New York, 1998). See also T. Sowell,
Conquests and Cultures: An International History
(New York, 1998).

In contrast, the bibliography of anti-Western criticism is huge, but a good introduction to the nature and methodology of the scholarship is K. Sale, The Conquest of
Paradise: Christopher Columbus and the Columbian Legacy
(New York, 1990); D. Peers, ed.,
Warfare and Empires: Contact and Conflict Between European and Non-European
Military and Maritime Forces and Cultures
(Brookfield, Vt., 1997); F. Fernandez-Armesto,
Millennium: A History of the Last Thousand Years
(New York, 1995); M. Adas,
Machines as the Measure of Men: Science, Technology, and Ideologies of Western
Dominance
(New York, 1989); T. Todorov,
The Conquest of America: The Question of
the Other
(New York, 1984); and F. Jameson and M. Miyoshi, eds.,
The Cultures of
Globalization
(Durham and London, 1998).

Postmodern approaches to Western dominance characterize M. Foucault,
The
Archaeology of Knowledge
(New York, 1972); M. de Certeau,
The Writing of History
(New York, 1988); E. Said,
Culture and Imperialism
(London, 1993);
Orientalism
(London, 1978); F. Jameson,
Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism
(London, 1991). For a sampling of the traditionalists’ defense of Western civilization, see S. Clough, Basic Values of Western Civilization (New York, 1960), and C. N. Parkinson,
East and West
(London, 1963). N. Douglas has an amusing polemic on the West in
Good-Bye to Western Culture
(New York, 1930).

Representative works of the biological and geographical explanations for the rise of the West are J. Diamond,
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
(New York, 1997); A. Crosby,
Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of
Europe, 900–1900
(Cambridge, 1986); and M. Harris,
Cannibals and Kings: The
Origins of Cultures
(New York, 1978). An effort to balance natural determinism with human agency and culture is found in W. McNeill, The Rise of the West (Chicago, 1991), and
The Pursuit of Power: Technology, Armed Force, and Society Since A.D. 1000
(Chicago, 1982).

A masterful survey of the role between culture and war is J. Keegan’s
A History of
Warfare (New York, 1993). See, too, K. Raaflaub and N. Rosenstein, eds., War and
Society in the Ancient and Medieval Worlds
(Cambridge, Mass., 1998). Surveys of the “Great Battles” are best begun with E. Creasy,
The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World:
From Marathon to Waterloo
(New York, 1908); T. Knox,
Decisive Battles Since Waterloo
(New York, 1887); J. F. C. Fuller, A Military History of the Western World (New York, 1954); A. Jones,
The Art of War in the Western World
(New York, 1987); and R. Gabriel and D. Boose,
The Great Battles of Antiquity: A Strategic and Tactical Guide to Great
Battles That Shaped the Development of War
(Westport, Conn., 1994).

Chapter Two: Freedom—or “To Live as You Please”
Salamis, September 28, 480 B.C.

The chief problems associated with the battle surround the exact date of the fighting, the size of the Persian fleet, the purported ruse of Themistocles, and the identification of particular islands in the Salamis strait. These issues are discussed in a number of fine histories in English of the Persian Wars. See, for example, J. Lazenby,
The
Defence of Greece 490–479 B.C. (Warminster, England, 1993); P. Green, The Greco-Persian Wars (Berkeley, Calif., 1994); and C. Hignett, Xerxes’ Invasion of Greece (Oxford, 1963). Still valuable is G. B. Grundy,
The Great Persian War and Its
Preliminaries
(London, 1901). In some ways, George Grote’s masterful chronicle of Salamis in the fifth volume of his
History of Greece,
2nd ed. (New York, 1899) remains unmatched; a new edition with an Introduction by Paul Cartledge is now available from Routledge (London 2000).

A number of scholars have attempted to sort out the baffling topography and conflicting ancient accounts of the battle. See G. Roux, “Éschyle, Hérodote, Diodore, Plutarque racontent la bataille de Salamine,”
Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique 98
(1974), 51–94, and the relevant sections in H. Delbrück,
Warfare in Antiquity,
vol. 1 of The History of the Art of War (Westport, Conn., 1975); N. G. L. Hammond, Studies in Greek History (Oxford, 1973); and W. K. Pritchett, Studies in Ancient Greek
Topography I
(Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1965). For comments on the pertinent Greek passages in Herodotus and Plutarch, see W. W. How and J. Wells, eds., A Commentary
on Herodotus
(Oxford, 1912), vol. 2, 378–87, and F. J. Frost,
Plutarch’s Themistocles: A
Historical Commentary
(Princeton, N.J., 1980).

The idea of freedom in the Greek world is discussed in a number of books. Begin with A. Momigliano, “The Persian Empire and Greek Freedom,” in A. Ryan, ed.,
The
Idea of Freedom: Essays in Honour of Isaiah Berlin (Oxford, 1979), 139–51; and O. Patterson,
Freedom in the Making of Western Culture
(New York, 1991). See also the essays in M. I. Finley,
Economy and Society in Ancient Greece
(New York, 1982). For the later symbolism of Salamis in popular Athenian ideology, see C. Meier, Athens: A
Portrait of the City in Its Golden Age
(New York, 1998), and N. Loraux,
The Invention
of Athens: The Funeral Oration in the Classical City
(Cambridge, Mass., 1986).

There are a number of fine studies of the Achaemenids that draw on Persian sources in addition to Greek literature. See H. Sancisi-Weerdenburg and A. Kuhrt,
Achaemenid History I: Sources, Structures and Synthesis
(Leiden, 1987); J. Boardman et al., eds.,
The Cambridge Ancient History,
2nd ed.,
Persia, Greece and the Western
Mediterranean c. 525 to 479
(Cambridge, 1988); J. M. Cook,
The Persian Empire
(New York, 1983); M. Dandamaev,
A Political History of the Achaemenid Empire
(Leiden, 1989); and A. T. Olmstead,
History of the Persian Empire, Achaemenid Period
(Chicago, 1948). On the history of Iran, see the chapter on the Achaemenids in R. Frye,
The History of Ancient Iran
(Munich, 1984). And for the letter of Darius to Gadatas, see R. Meiggs and D. Lewis, eds.,
A Selection of Greek Historical Inscriptions
to the End of the Fifth Century B.C. (Oxford, repr. ed., 1989).

More specific accounts of Greek-Persian cultural relations are covered in D. Lewis,
Sparta and Persia: Lectures Delivered at the University of Cincinnati, Autumn
1976, in Memory of Donald W. Bradeen (Leiden, 1977), and Selected Papers in Greek
and Near Eastern History
(Cambridge, 1997); A. R. Burn,
Persia and the Greeks: The
Defence of the West, c. 546–478 B.C. (New York, repr. ed., 1984); M. Miller, Athens and Persia in the Fifth Century B.C. (Cambridge, 1997); and especially the article by S. Averintsev, “Ancient Greek ‘Literature’ and Near Eastern ‘Writings’: The Opposition and Encounter of Two Creative Principles, Part One: The Opposition,”
Arion
7.1 (Spring/Summer 1999), 1–39. For an accessible synopsis of the Persian army, see A. Ferrill,
The Origins of War: From the Stone Age to Alexander the Great
(New York, 1985).

On Greek navies and sea power in general, see C. Starr, The Influence of Sea-Power on Ancient History (New York, 1989); L. Casson, The Ancient Mariners:
Seafarers and Sea Fighters of the Mediterranean in Ancient Times
(London, 1959), and Ships and Seamanship in the Ancient World (Princeton, N.J., 1971); and J. S. Morrison and R. T. Williams, Greek Oared Ships 900–322 B.C. (London, 1968). For reconstructions of the ancient trireme, consult J. S. Morrison, J. F. Coates, and N. B. Ranov, The
Athenian Trireme: The History and Reconstruction of an Ancient Greek Warship
(Cambridge, 2000), and
An Athenian Trireme Reconstructed: The British Sea Trials of
‘Olympias,’
British Archaeological Series 486 (Oxford, 1987).

There is also a growing academic industry that chronicles the Greeks’ purported prejudicial perceptions of Persia; cf. E. Hall,
Inventing the Barbarian: Greek Self-DefinitionThrough Tragedy
(Oxford, 1989); F. Hartog,
The Mirror of Herodotus
(Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1988); and P. Georges, Barbarian Asia and the Greek
Experience: From the Archaic Period to the Age of Xenophon
(Baltimore, Md., 1994). An extreme example is P. Springborg, Western Republicanism and the Oriental Prince (Austin, Tex., 1992).

Chapter Three: Decisive Battle
Gaugamela, October 1, 331 B.C.

Gaugamela is amply treated in a variety of academic genres, most of them narrow journal articles in academic publications. For the general reader, it is best to begin with purely military histories of Alexander’s reign. There exists a fine, though brief monograph on the battle by E. W. Marsden, The Campaign of Gaugamela (Liverpool 1964). Gaugamela also forms a key part of the discussion in J. F. C. Fuller, The
Generalship of Alexander the Great
(London, 1958); is reviewed competently by H. Delbrück,
Warfare in Antiquity,
vol. 1 of
The History of the Art of War
(Westport, Conn., 1975), and J. F. C. Fuller, A Military History of the Western World, vol. 1 (London, 1954); and is found as well in E. Creasy,
The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the
World: From Marathon to Waterloo
(New York, 1908).

For purely military matters, see also J. Ashley,
The Macedonian Empire: The Era
of Warfare Under Philip II and Alexander the Great, 359–323 B.C. (Jefferson, N.C., 1998), and D. Engels,
Alexander the Great and the Logistics of the Macedonian Army
(Berkeley, Calif., 1978). N. G. L. Hammond is brilliant on Alexander’s army but far less so on any historical assessment of his reign and achievements: e.g.,
Alexander the
Great: King, Commander, and Statesman
(Park Ridge, N.J., 1989);
Three Historians of
Alexander the Great: The So-Called Vulgate Authors, Diodorus, Justin, and Curtius
(Cambridge, 1983); and, with G. T. Griffith,
A History of Macedonia,
vol. 2 (Oxford, 1979).

The complex ancient sources of information about Gaugamela—mostly reconciliation of the contrary accounts of Plutarch, Diodorus, Arrian, and Curtius—are best discussed in J. R. Hamilton,
Plutarch’s Alexander: A Commentary
(Oxford, 1969); N. G. L. Hammond, Sources for Alexander the Great: An Analysis of Plutarch’s Life and
Arrian’s Anabasis Alexandros
(Cambridge, 1993); A. B. Bosworth,
A Historical
Commentary on Arrian’s History of Alexander, vol. 1 (Oxford, 1980); J. C. Yardley,
Justin: Epitome of the Philippic History of Pompeius Trogus, Books 11–12: Alexander the
Great (Oxford, 1997); J. Atkinson, A Commentary on Q. Curtius Rufus’ Historiae Alexandri Magni, Books 3 & 4 (London, 1980); and L. Pearson, The Lost Histories of
Alexander the Great
(New York, 1960).