LightSpectra
me autem minui
I see your Anglo-Zanzibar War and raise you the Iceland Cod Wars.
Most Important Battle in History
- Thread starter Dreadnought
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I see your Anglo-Zanzibar War and raise you the Iceland Cod Wars.
ParkCungHee
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I see your Iceland cold war, and raise you 2007's invasion of Lichtenstein by Switzerland.
LightSpectra
me autem minui
Sun Tzu said, "Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win." Though I suppose this mantra is unfalsifiable, since you can declare the winning side to have been in a perpetual state of victory ex post facto.
LightSpectra
me autem minui
That was just a possible response. I don't agree that "wars are turning points," because wars aren't "points" at all but events (except that Anglo-Zanzibar War, but nevermind that). And if you want to get Zeno-paradoxy about it, neither are battles points either, because bodies stack up and arrows can only fill their spaces... or something like that.
My point was more along the lines of "no plan survives contact with the enemy". (Though a battle of maxims, as it were, would be less than useless. A witty quote proves nothing, after all. But the idea of friction and the basic existence of the fog of war means that very seldom does anyone have an inevitable lock on victory from the beginning of a conflict.) Which isn't specifically about this battles-wars-turning points-etc. nonsense, but you brought up the Chinese Charlatan, sooo...
I think Sunzi is quite good when read as a whole. When you break it down into individual snippets it doesn't hold water. It's like he's explaining stuff to idiots, so he'll say something in one chapter and contradict himself in the next, but it's not necessarily wrong.
A great example is the out-of-context quote I posted last month about how you can treat a large army like a single person, so long as you have banners, flags, etc.. He says something completely different in another chapter, about how it's impossible to get an army to act as a unit. But if he's speaking to disciples - and, if Sunzi was a real person, that's likely where these truisms come from - then it makes sense to tell them how to organise their army first, then explain to them later that they can never organise it perfectly. I think that's how it should be read.
I think it's fine as theory, it's in practice that it breaks down.
innonimatu
the resident Cassandra
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Looks like you really don't like Sun Tsu. Speaking of old works on strategy, war, etc, may I ask what you think of Kautilya? He's supposed to have caused some trouble to the greeks in India.
I thought the little bits and pieces of the Arthashastra that I read were pretty neat, but most of that had to do with specific tactical formations. Haven't read the whole thing, though. The parts I did get through reminded me of the technical parts of On War. As I understand, he wrote up mostly other stuff in the work, statecraft, etiquette, and economics, in addition to all the stuff on war. Overall, I haven't the grounding to judge the work with any certainty, but I have a good impression of him.
As for the amount of 'trouble' Kautilya, Chandragupta, and Seleukos caused each other in the shadow of the Hindu Kush, both Hellenistic and Maurya scholars do some pretty insane acrobatics with the literature to try to bend it one way or another and make it seem as though one side got the better of the other. I wish we knew more, the whole affair seems immensely interesting.
As for the amount of 'trouble' Kautilya, Chandragupta, and Seleukos caused each other in the shadow of the Hindu Kush, both Hellenistic and Maurya scholars do some pretty insane acrobatics with the literature to try to bend it one way or another and make it seem as though one side got the better of the other. I wish we knew more, the whole affair seems immensely interesting.
innonimatu
the resident Cassandra
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Sorry for going OT on the thread's subject, but is there any good book you'd recommend about that period of indian history? It's one subject I'm curious about but have had little opportunity to explore so far. And if it was you who recommended here "Alexander to Actium" about the hellenistic period, thanks, I enjoyed that one.
My understanding of Indian history at the time is mostly tangential, from Baktrian/Indo-Greek and Diadoch stuff. For which, by the way, there is no good up to date overall work. Bophearachchi is, I hear, extraordinarily good and the cutting edge of modern scholarship, but his work is focused on numismatics, and it's also in French, which means I can't read it. So if you wanted to get a good overview on the modern state of things, either you have to know French, or you can get a much more basic understanding from the UNESCO History of Central Asia, Part II. (Which is ridiculously expensive for an American.) The updated version of Narain's The Indo-Greeks (if it's not the 2003 reprint, it's not worth your money) might also help, although Narain is a bit radical on his treatment of Demetrios Aniketos. Avoid Sidky, generally a poorly written narrative survey that doesn't trouble itself with most of what's going on in India, and avoid Tarn unless you've already read some of the other, more modern works on the subject, because he wrote off the basis of some forged coins and missing a few important pieces. Holt's Thundering Zeus is fantastic but it doesn't cover India at all, it's limited almost entirely to the two Diodotoi and a historiographical analysis of Baktrian studies.
But yeah, on India in general or the Mauryas, Sungas, and Satavahanas in particular, I'd probably ask North King for good works. Or try that Keay history BananaLee mentioned in another thread.
But yeah, on India in general or the Mauryas, Sungas, and Satavahanas in particular, I'd probably ask North King for good works. Or try that Keay history BananaLee mentioned in another thread.
innonimatu
the resident Cassandra
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Thanks, I'll look for an old edition of Narain's book then If I can find it. And you just reminded me to check in UNESCO's History of Humanity, vol.3 should have something about the subject also - I skipped the south Asia part when I read it a few years ago.
That History of Central Asia looks interesting but I don't have it and don't see a local translation either. As you said the english version of those books books tend be expensive.HistoryFan
Chieftain
Yorktown. Without the colonists win [and with the help from the French] there would be no U.S. Just think about that. The England empire would still stand just as large if not larger than it was! The American revolution paved the way for other revolutions to. History would be so different!
LightSpectra
me autem minui
No Yorktown if no Chesapeake, no Chesapeake if no Saratoga, no Saratoga if no Trenton, no Trenton if no Long Island, no Long Island if no Plains of Abraham, no Plains of Abraham if no Louisbourg...
Not as if the Brits had any chance during the Siege of Yorktown anyway. Might as well say that the Battle of Berlin is important because if it hadn't happened, Nazi Germany would still exist.
But the British empire grew larger after the loss of the American part of it - it reached its greatest extent in the nineteenth century. And the dismantling of the empire in the twentieth century had nothing to do with the American revolution.
Which isn't to say that the American revolution wasn't important, but just that it's not got much to do with the loss of the British empire.
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