Donald Kagan (1932–2021)

An absorbing book, providing a deep insight into what really causes, or leads to, armed interactions among countries and peoples. The chapters on the two world wars are especially absorbing. I, for one, got fresh insights into the role of individual leaders and statesmen like Bismarck, who balanced the European west and the east tirelessly and kept them from going to war. After his retirement, however, the bellicose factions gained ascendancy and took Europe into a devastating war. By show more drawing on the early examples of Sparta-Athens divisions in ancient Greece and the Rome-Carthage wars a little later, the author repeatedly makes the point that it is not only greed for plunder or land that leads to war between nations, but also, perhaps more usually, feelings of not being respected or given a just deal. Wars often become inevitable because of national pride and remembered or resurrected instances of humiliation or betrayal. His chapter on the Cuban missile crisis does not appear to me to be on par with the other examples, as he seems to be oscillating toward and away from a hawkish stance, and seems to be accusing John Kennedy of projecting a weak and pusillanimous character to the rough and bumptious Kruschev. On the whole, however, this author's analysis and insights into war and peace should surely improve our understanding of the current crises as well. show less

Kagan is trying to justify Bush era preemptive strike policy and aggressive foreign wars by using and comparing historical examples of failed peaces. This would more accurately say "...and the preservation of the status-quo", because the authors idea of "peace" is first strike wars against those who threaten it.

The one thing that really bothers me the most is that the examples he uses (the Punic wars, WW1, WW2)are all certainly illustrative of the consequences of leaving a tenacious enemy show more half defeated, but have little bearing on what it means to become involved in warfare in this modern age. Look at Afghanistan and Iraq to see that it is not a matter of crushing an enemy completely to secure victory, this simply can not be done in a insurgent style war. Anyone who reads the U.S. Army's Counterinsurgency Field manual, or reads any of the modern theorists on insurgent warfare (which is really all that is happening anymore) can see for themselves that destruction of the enemy by force is an unrealistic approach to this kind of warfare and that military success will never look the same again as it did even sixty years ago. It's not enough to completely destroy the enemy and remove his ability to make war because the enemy is not an army, and he makes war in the shadows with nothing but scraps.

Kagan and his children are notorious insiders. His son Frederick Kagan is credited with conceiving of the famous "surge" in Iraq, his son Robert Kagan is a notorious neo-conservative who was directly involved in the bush era insanity (see his books). The U.S. went into Iraq with a "let's just smash 'em up and go home" attitude, and IT DIDN'T WORK. How soon after Bush declared victory did it become clear that there was no victory to be had then, or ever? immediately. these guys want nothing more than a conventional war like their fathers had, with the pitched field battles like their fathers fought, but they can not have them. We will all pay the price for this desire of these few militant men in high places who want so badly the glory of days long past. show less

Kagan offers a compelling portrait of Pericles and his times. It is easy to see why he was a very popular teacher at Yale. Kagan's admiration for Pericles is balanced by noting his weaknesses and failures. Perhaps the most notable is the observation that rational calculations are often tripped up by emotional responses, something Pericles failed to take into account. Kagan views the Greeks in the context of their own time, showing how they were often very different from the people of today, show more and he does not fall into the error of judging by the standards of today. show less

Since the publishing of the first part in 1969, this history remains the best one can read on the Peloponnesian War. Offering a complete narration of the 27 years of butchery (and of the preceding decades) from its origins to the bitter end, but also a portentous narrative. The reader can not but be astonished at the development of this succesion of (greek) tragedies in which the hibris stalks all its protagonists (the cities themselves among them)