Hanson Victor Davis. The Wars of the Ancient Greeks and Their Invention of Western Military Culture

Cassell, 2000. — 224 p.The Ancient Greeks - who believed that war is the most important thing humans do - bequeathed to the West an incomparable military legacy that still influences the structure of armies and doctrine. Understand the reasons why their unique approach to fighting was so successful and so relentless, its role at the heart of classical culture, the rise of the city state, agrarian duels, the emergence of Athenian and Spartan power, the development of war as a specialized science, and the collapse of Greek warfare after Alexander the Great.Victor Davis Hanson is Professor of Greek and Director of the Classics Program at California State University, Fresno. He is the author or editor of many books, including Who Killed Homer? The Demise of Classical Education and the Recovery of Greek Wisdom (with John Heath, Free Press, 1998), and The Soul of Battle (Free Press, 1999). In 1992 he was named the most outstanding undergraduate teacher of classics in the nation.