Carnage and Culture: Landmark Battles in the Rise to Western Power

Examining nine landmark battles from ancient to modern times—from Salamis, where outnumbered Greeks devastated the slave army of Xerxes, to Cortes's conquest of Mexico, and to the Tet offensive—Victor Davis Hanson explains why the armies of the West have been the most lethal and effective of any fighting forces in the world.

Key Insights:

• Hanson challenges popular explanations such as geography or superior technology, asserting that Western culture and values—including the tradition of dissent, value placed on inventiveness and adaptation, and the concept of citizenship—are the true reasons behind the consistent production of superior arms and soldiers.
• The book demonstrates how armies cannot be separated from the cultures that produce them, arguing that an army produced by a free culture will always have the advantage.

Riveting Battle Narratives:

• Hanson offers gripping accounts of pivotal battles while maintaining a balanced perspective, avoiding simplistic triumphalism.

Controversial and Bold Perspectives:

• The unsolicited war guarantee to Poland in 1939: Buchanan describes this as the greatest mistake in British history, ensuring the onset of the Second World War.
• Certain to spark controversy and spirited debate, Churchill, Hitler, and “The Unnecessary War” provides grand and bold insights into the historic failures of judgment that ended centuries of European dominance and guaranteed a future unimaginable to those who lived in that vanished world.