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A review by mburnamfink
A History of Warfare by John Keegan
4.0
Keegan is still the preeminent military history, and in this grand and sprawling book he attempts a synthetic history of warfare from the pre-historic dawn to the atomic age. Boldly staking a claim that Clausewitz's famous epigram "war is the continuation of politics by other means" is substantially misguided, a parallel to Marx's misguided grand theory of history, he instead provides a tour through four different types of warfare that is a lot of fun, but on the whole not terribly convincing.
Keegan begins in pre-history. Although the anthropological record makes it difficult to draw precise conclusions about prehistorical warfare, the extinction of North American megafauna provides clear evidence that mankind was a deadly killer, while ancient burials of people killed by flint points indicates that these tools were used against humans. Anthropological studies of hunter-gatherers in the Amazon and Papua New Guinea reveal that violence is endemic, though war is carefully circumscribed by rituals and taboos that describe how violence can be escalated, and where its limits are. This war is typically an arranged skirmish with relatively flimsy ranged weapons which can be easily dodged, and is fought to avenge an insult or for the sheer joy of it.
The first military technology revolution was the combination of the composite bow and chariot, which along with bronze armor and weapons, made a small military elite truly invincible in combat, able to circle masses of foot-soldiers and pick them off at will. Cavalry replaced chariots, but the light missile cavalry solidified as one of the dominant military strategies on Earth, as waves of steppe nomads from the Scythians to the Mongols poured out from endless plains to raid settled lands, occasionally invading and supplanting the existing rulers. In Keegan's reading, steppe nomads fought war not to rule, but because they enjoyed war itself, and the plunder was more lucrative than trading. When they did conquer, as in Turkey, they set up microcosmic steppe camps in the center of their palaces.
Against the Oriental style of the steppe nomads, Keegan puts the Western style of the Greek phalanx and Roman legion, where armored infantry (and later heavy cavalry) sought a decisive clash of arms. The Western style was not without it's mysticism. Keegan suggests the Greeks sought to limit wars to battles which could be resolved quickly, on prearranged flat spaces, rather than lengthy campaigns to despoil the countryside. Rome raised infantry to an imperial power, while the Dark Ages successors were caught between precepts of Christian pacifism and feudal notions of honor.
Western and Oriental styles of war existed in uneasy equilibrium. Heavy infantry could not successful invade steppe lands, but nomadic forces required huge herds of remounts, and could not sustain themselves in settled territories. The fourth style of army, the gunpowder armies that developed from the mercenary companies of 15th central Europe into the royal regiments of new nation-states, were something different. Drill and technology combined the ranged firepower of nomads with the endurance of heavy infantry. Military discipline could be mastered in a matter of weeks, as opposed to a lifetime of training. Only in the Napoleonic Wars does Keegan see Clausewitz's unit of politics and warfare, as the French revolution mobilized the entire people for military purposes. The logic of mass mobilization reached its zenith in the total wars of the 20th century: the slaughter along the Western Front of WW1, the genocides and aerial bombings of WW2, and the atomic apocalypse of a future WW3.
Written in the wake of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the triumph of high-tech interventionism that the Gulf War, Keegan can't foresee the rise of terrorism and the endless 'hybrid wars' of the 21st century. And while the book is enjoyable, if so very Orientalist, Keegan's argument is weakened by the narrowness of his definition of politics, which seem to be something only states and ministers can engage in. Rather, a more expansive definition of politics (I like the "art of reconciling human aspirations") shows that organized violence, even in the absence of states, can be political, and that cannons speak when words cannot be reconciled. As much as he claims to banish a false 'grand theory', Keegan raises another one weakly grounded on culture, that does not bear much rigor.
Keegan begins in pre-history. Although the anthropological record makes it difficult to draw precise conclusions about prehistorical warfare, the extinction of North American megafauna provides clear evidence that mankind was a deadly killer, while ancient burials of people killed by flint points indicates that these tools were used against humans. Anthropological studies of hunter-gatherers in the Amazon and Papua New Guinea reveal that violence is endemic, though war is carefully circumscribed by rituals and taboos that describe how violence can be escalated, and where its limits are. This war is typically an arranged skirmish with relatively flimsy ranged weapons which can be easily dodged, and is fought to avenge an insult or for the sheer joy of it.
The first military technology revolution was the combination of the composite bow and chariot, which along with bronze armor and weapons, made a small military elite truly invincible in combat, able to circle masses of foot-soldiers and pick them off at will. Cavalry replaced chariots, but the light missile cavalry solidified as one of the dominant military strategies on Earth, as waves of steppe nomads from the Scythians to the Mongols poured out from endless plains to raid settled lands, occasionally invading and supplanting the existing rulers. In Keegan's reading, steppe nomads fought war not to rule, but because they enjoyed war itself, and the plunder was more lucrative than trading. When they did conquer, as in Turkey, they set up microcosmic steppe camps in the center of their palaces.
Against the Oriental style of the steppe nomads, Keegan puts the Western style of the Greek phalanx and Roman legion, where armored infantry (and later heavy cavalry) sought a decisive clash of arms. The Western style was not without it's mysticism. Keegan suggests the Greeks sought to limit wars to battles which could be resolved quickly, on prearranged flat spaces, rather than lengthy campaigns to despoil the countryside. Rome raised infantry to an imperial power, while the Dark Ages successors were caught between precepts of Christian pacifism and feudal notions of honor.
Western and Oriental styles of war existed in uneasy equilibrium. Heavy infantry could not successful invade steppe lands, but nomadic forces required huge herds of remounts, and could not sustain themselves in settled territories. The fourth style of army, the gunpowder armies that developed from the mercenary companies of 15th central Europe into the royal regiments of new nation-states, were something different. Drill and technology combined the ranged firepower of nomads with the endurance of heavy infantry. Military discipline could be mastered in a matter of weeks, as opposed to a lifetime of training. Only in the Napoleonic Wars does Keegan see Clausewitz's unit of politics and warfare, as the French revolution mobilized the entire people for military purposes. The logic of mass mobilization reached its zenith in the total wars of the 20th century: the slaughter along the Western Front of WW1, the genocides and aerial bombings of WW2, and the atomic apocalypse of a future WW3.
Written in the wake of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the triumph of high-tech interventionism that the Gulf War, Keegan can't foresee the rise of terrorism and the endless 'hybrid wars' of the 21st century. And while the book is enjoyable, if so very Orientalist, Keegan's argument is weakened by the narrowness of his definition of politics, which seem to be something only states and ministers can engage in. Rather, a more expansive definition of politics (I like the "art of reconciling human aspirations") shows that organized violence, even in the absence of states, can be political, and that cannons speak when words cannot be reconciled. As much as he claims to banish a false 'grand theory', Keegan raises another one weakly grounded on culture, that does not bear much rigor.