Historical fiction is one of my favorite genres, but it's hard not to include in that group Victor Hanson's historical nonfiction. His passion for the past and seamless ability to make it approachable is remarkable. In A War Like No Other, we're treated to the story of ancient Greece's Peloponnesian War — a 30+ year conflict between Athens and Sparta in the fifth century BCE.
Rather than give a chronological series of events of the West's first civil war (which turns into a world war encompassing all of the Mediterranean and Persia), instead Hanson's approach is the how — how was it fought — militarily and politically — and what can we learn from it?
From there, much to my tastes, he speculates on many parallels to our modern age. For instance, one of Sparta's reasons for striking first was the increasing culture influence of democratic Athens, which was giving Sparta's slave population ideas about freedom and revolt. The term used at the time was 'Attikizo,' to Atticize. (Athens was located on the Attican peninsula). You can trace Sparta's similar fearful sentiments two thousands years later to America's southern states preceding this nation's own civil war, and even closer to today with how theocratic regimes of the Middle East view 'Westernization.'
Speaking for myself here, 'the war like no other' that Hanson records is frighteningly similar to many others we've seen in history and on CNN. {JG}
Rather than give a chronological series of events of the West's first civil war (which turns into a world war encompassing all of the Mediterranean and Persia), instead Hanson's approach is the how — how was it fought — militarily and politically — and what can we learn from it?
From there, much to my tastes, he speculates on many parallels to our modern age. For instance, one of Sparta's reasons for striking first was the increasing culture influence of democratic Athens, which was giving Sparta's slave population ideas about freedom and revolt. The term used at the time was 'Attikizo,' to Atticize. (Athens was located on the Attican peninsula). You can trace Sparta's similar fearful sentiments two thousands years later to America's southern states preceding this nation's own civil war, and even closer to today with how theocratic regimes of the Middle East view 'Westernization.'
Speaking for myself here, 'the war like no other' that Hanson records is frighteningly similar to many others we've seen in history and on CNN. {JG}
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