By one estimate, humans have fought wars in ninety-four out of every hundred years for the past 5,000. Despite radical differences in the prosecution of warfare between ancient and modern societies, there remains a linear connection to the ways that Greco-Roman cultures thought about war--its conduct, aims, tactics, and ethics. This is epitomized most obviously in the Greek and Latin derivatives that dot our language of war--"army,"military, "strategy." Combining astute analyses of the logistics of conflict with the ethics of war, Alfred Bradford offers fascinating parallels between warfare in ancient and contemporary societies. After a brief prelude that discusses the Greeks' first descriptions of battle in the Iliad, Bradford outlines the changes in warfare from the earliest records through the fall of the Roman Empire to contemporary wars of counterterrorism. The second half of the book turns to discuss more holistically the study of war, the writing of war, and images of war, drawing on a diverse range of texts and images. Fundamentally, Bradford shows that despite massive differences in weaponry and firepower, the basic principles of warfare have remained unchanged over thousands of years, and even as we move further from antiquity, war in the modern age is persistently illuminated by our Greek and Roman forbearers.

Product Description: Numerous nations have in one way or another engaged with the cultures of classical Greece and Rome. What impact does the classical past have on ideas of the nation, nationhood, nationality, and what effect does the national space have on classical culture? How has classical culture been imagined in various national traditions, what importance has it had within them, and for whom? This collection of essays by an international team of experts tackles the vexed relationship between Classics and national cultures, presenting essays on many regions, including China, India, Mexico, Japan, and South Africa, as well as Germany, Greece, and Italy...read more

Product Description: The Oxford Handbook of Hellenic Studies is a unique collection of some seventy articles which together explore the ways in which ancient Greece has been, is, and might be studied. It is intended to inform its readers, but also, importantly, to inspire them, and to enable them to pursue their own research by introducing the primary resources and exploring the latest agenda for their study...read more

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