scottincr
10-01-2007, 07:43 AM
I am helping my high school daughter with a book report on a book titled, A War Like No Other, written by Victor Davis Hanson. It is about how the Athenians and the Spartans fought the Peloponnesian war.
I have never been particularly interested in history, but I found this book thoroughly interesting and frightening because of the similarities of our present day circumstances.
Athens had 300 war ships, a democratic population of 300,000, a fortified port, 200 tribute paying subject states abroad and vast amounts of coined money. Sparta was land locked, had an army of 10,000 men; 5,000 of whom where not full citizens. They "had 250,000 inferiors and serfs, and a hegemony of neighboring communities, without any tradition of either seapower or a cosmopolitan culture."
The fight was assumed to be the final arbitrator contrasting values between cultural and political liberalism or a tough, insular conservatism. But a central theme, from a lengthy narrative written by a scholar, Thucydides, who traveled both sided and recorded the entire war, "is the use and abuse of power, and how it lurks behind men's professions of idealism and purported ideology".
During a 100 years of Athenian imperialism from 500 BC to 400 BC, Athens sought to remove oligarchs and impose democracy and " no ancient state made war more often than did fifth-century imperial Athens".
The 27 year Pelopennesion war financially bankrupted the Athenians and "it baffled Thucydides, that a Hellenistic civilization that had once given man so much now began to self destruct so quickly." One of the material reasons attributed to Athens loss against Sparta and its allies Corinth and Thebes is that in 415 BC Athens decided to invade a democratic Syracuse. Athens was like the Germany of WWII, which fought France and England , took on the US and tried to invade Russia. Hitler might have defeated or obtained a draw with any of the three powers individually or in succession, but never two much less three of the powers at the same time.
Secondly, by invading a Democratic Syracuse it weakened its long standing propaganda that its wars were in a large part ideological, taken on behalf of democratic peoples and their desire to live in democratic societies.
The parallels between a once wealthy US has significant domestic issues it needs to resolve, who is currently wasting its financial and human resources on a costly idealogical war being lead by leaders who have often been accused of having conflicting interests. The facts that we are losing or at best in a stalemate war of attrition in Afghanistan and Iraq and we are on a path with initiating another war with a third county Iran boarders insanity.
It is unfortunate that the intellectuals, advisors and leaders of our country are not taking the lessons from other historical periods and learning from them it is as if we are cursed and choose not to learn from the mistakes of other cultures throughout history.
RON PAUl is the only candidate who is seriouly looking at history and trying to change our countries policies to avoid the ruin of our country like the ruin of many other countires and cultures throughout history.
I have never been particularly interested in history, but I found this book thoroughly interesting and frightening because of the similarities of our present day circumstances.
Athens had 300 war ships, a democratic population of 300,000, a fortified port, 200 tribute paying subject states abroad and vast amounts of coined money. Sparta was land locked, had an army of 10,000 men; 5,000 of whom where not full citizens. They "had 250,000 inferiors and serfs, and a hegemony of neighboring communities, without any tradition of either seapower or a cosmopolitan culture."
The fight was assumed to be the final arbitrator contrasting values between cultural and political liberalism or a tough, insular conservatism. But a central theme, from a lengthy narrative written by a scholar, Thucydides, who traveled both sided and recorded the entire war, "is the use and abuse of power, and how it lurks behind men's professions of idealism and purported ideology".
During a 100 years of Athenian imperialism from 500 BC to 400 BC, Athens sought to remove oligarchs and impose democracy and " no ancient state made war more often than did fifth-century imperial Athens".
The 27 year Pelopennesion war financially bankrupted the Athenians and "it baffled Thucydides, that a Hellenistic civilization that had once given man so much now began to self destruct so quickly." One of the material reasons attributed to Athens loss against Sparta and its allies Corinth and Thebes is that in 415 BC Athens decided to invade a democratic Syracuse. Athens was like the Germany of WWII, which fought France and England , took on the US and tried to invade Russia. Hitler might have defeated or obtained a draw with any of the three powers individually or in succession, but never two much less three of the powers at the same time.
Secondly, by invading a Democratic Syracuse it weakened its long standing propaganda that its wars were in a large part ideological, taken on behalf of democratic peoples and their desire to live in democratic societies.
The parallels between a once wealthy US has significant domestic issues it needs to resolve, who is currently wasting its financial and human resources on a costly idealogical war being lead by leaders who have often been accused of having conflicting interests. The facts that we are losing or at best in a stalemate war of attrition in Afghanistan and Iraq and we are on a path with initiating another war with a third county Iran boarders insanity.
It is unfortunate that the intellectuals, advisors and leaders of our country are not taking the lessons from other historical periods and learning from them it is as if we are cursed and choose not to learn from the mistakes of other cultures throughout history.
RON PAUl is the only candidate who is seriouly looking at history and trying to change our countries policies to avoid the ruin of our country like the ruin of many other countires and cultures throughout history.