Campaigns of Alexander

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1. jackfoxySep 2011
   I've meant to compile this list, so you just inspired me. I wish the Durants had had the stamina for one more volume. I don't know much about the European revolutions of 1848 and would have like to read about that time from them. I already had read a lot of ancient Greek literature in translation as well as The Pentateuch, all the historical books of the Old Testament and the Gospels. Western Civilization springs from intellectual roots in Athens and Jerusalem, so any survey has to include that heritage. My degree is in Comparative Literature, so I put a lot of stock in origninal source material. The only languages I read are English and German, so everything is in English or translation except Faust, which IMO would be a waste in translation. The books I read for my survey (this was my survey to fill in my personal Bildungslöcke) are not all classics, and not even all to be recommended. It may appear surprisingly heavy on 20th century, but a lot of intellectual threads I thought I should understand better got kicked off in that century. In more or less chronological order by authorship or content (and I've probably forgotten a few):

   Euclid The Elements

   Arrian The Campaigns of Alexander

   Garmonsway (trans.) The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

   Komroff (ed.) The Travels of Marco Polo

   Haydn The Counter-Renaissance

   Braudel The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Phillip II, Vol I&II

   Pascal The Thoughts

   Spinoza The Ethics

   Christianson In the Presence of the Creator: Isaac Newton & his Times

   Newton Opticks

   Newton Principia (get the modern English translation by U.C. Press)

   Hampson The Enlightenment

   Voltaire Candide

   Rousseau The Social Contract

   Boswell Life of Johnson

   Goethe Faust

   Phillips The Cousins' Wars

   Schom Napoleon Bonaparte

   Heidler & Heidler Old Hickory's War

   Babbage On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures

   de Toqueville Democracy in America

   Darwin On the Origen of Species

   Foote The Civil War: A Narrative

   Maurois Disraeli

   Twain Life on the Mississippi

   Spector Admiral of the New Empire, The Life and Career of George Dewey

   Cardwell The Norton History of Technology

   Abbott Flatland, A Romance of Many Dimensions

   Meyer & Brysac Tournament of Shaddows, The Great Game and the Race for Empire in Central Asia

   Doughty Travels in Arabia Deserta

   Lefevre The Golden Flood

   Massie Dreadnought, Britain, Germany, and the Coming of the Great War

   Lawrence Seven Pillars of Wisdom

   Durant The Story of Philosophy

   Cardozo The Nature of the Judicial Process

   Schapiro The Communist Party of the Soviet Union

   Popper The Logic of Scientific Discovery

   Kershaw Hitler: 1889-1936 Hubris

   Blemenson (ed.) The Patton Papers (1940-1945)

   Hayek The Road to Serfdom

   von Mises Human Action

   Skinner Walden Two

   Chambers Witness

   Kuhn The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

   Guevara Guerrilla Warfare

   Cleaver Soul on Ice

   Lacey The Kingdom, Arabia & the House of Saud

   Durant The Lessons of History

   Hackworth Lessons Learned, Vietnam Primer

   Quigley Tragedy & Hope: A History of the World in Our Time

   EDIT: Just remembered two more

   Hobbes Leviathan

   Locke Two Treatises of Government

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2. mountainbJun 2022
   Sparta won the Peloponnesian War, even though it relied on making major social and military changes (building a navy, relying more on auxiliary troops than core elite troops) to accomplish that. The other bit is that if one ais trying to draw a distinction between Athenian reliance on citizen-soldier hoplites and the reliance on crack troops reliant on masses of helots, that distinction was muddled during the Peloponnesian War as heavy infantry combat became much less relevant on all sides as naval warfare (manned by masses of both slaves and paid troops) became much more important.

   It also doesn't really make much sense to say that Sparta's reliance on its elite core lead to its eventual subordination to Macedonia. Macedon under Philip and Alexander was also built around an elite core -- the Companion Cavalry supported by the sarissa-armed infantry, which were relatively lightly armored compared to traditional Athenian/Spartan heavy infantry. It also doesn't really make that much sense to try to draw clear ethical distinctions between the Macedonians and the Spartans. One of the most common lines to read in the Campaigns of Alexander is "all the men remaining in the city were killed, and then the women and children were sold into slavery."

   What's clear is that Spartans gained the reputation for having the most elite heavy infantry during the time period, at the time when heavy infantry proved to be the most important type of fighter on land. Then, in a generation or two, elite heavy infantry became a lot less important, and Sparta had demographic difficulties in replenishing its numbers, particularly of its core elite fighters. Light infantry with significantly less training became more important, as did light cavalry (no stirrups invented yet). Naval fighting became a lot more important also. So, what they were the best at became of decreasing relevance, and also their intensive training methods abetted by extreme social stratification didn't scale to the intensity of the conflict during the Peloponnesian War. To win, they had to make a bunch of massive adaptations and ally with the Persians.

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3. md1515Nov 2011
   I'm far more into history than anything. I'm reading "The Campaigns of Alexander" by Arrian and "Halliburton's Army"
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