The Culture of War
New York: Ballantine Books, 2008. Book Club Edition. Hardcover. xvi, 485, [9] pages. Notes. Index. Martin Levi van Creveld (born 5 March 1946) is an Israeli military historian and theorist. In 1950, his family immigrated to Israel, and Creveld grew up in Ramat Gan. From 1964 to 1969, he studied history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and earned an M.A. From 1969 to 1971, he studied history at the London School of Economics and received a Ph.D. His thesis was titled Greece and Yugoslavia in Hitler's strategy, 1940–1941. Van Creveld's doctoral dissertation on Hitler's strategy in the Balkans during the early years of World War II was published as a book in 1973: "Hitler's Strategy, 1940–41. The Balkan Clue." van Creveld returned to Israel and began teaching at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He became a professor in 1988. In 2007, he retired from teaching at Hebrew University, and began teaching at Tel Aviv University's Security Studies Program. Van Creveld is the author of thirty-three books on military history, strategy, and other topics, of which Command in War, Supplying War: Logistics from Wallenstein to Patton, The Transformation of War, The Sword and the Olive and The Rise and Decline of the State are among the best known. Van Creveld has lectured or taught at numerous civilian and military institutes of higher learning all over the world. Van Creveld notes that many of the wars fought after 1945 were low-intensity conflicts (LICs) which powerful states ended up losing. The book argues that we are seeing a decline of the nation-state, without a comparable decline in organized violence. A respected scholar of military history and an expert on strategy, Martin van Creveld recently explored the modern world's shifting method of combat in The Changing Face of War. Now, in The Culture of War, he argues that there is much more to war than just soldiers killing one another for whatever reason. War has always been a topic of deep intrigue. Fighting itself can be a source of great, perhaps even the greatest, joy; out of this joy and fascination an entire culture has grown, from the war paint of tribal warriors to today's tiger suits, from Julius Caesar's red cloak to Douglas McArthur's pipe, from the decorative shields of ancient Greece to today's nose art, and from the invention of chess around 600 A.D. to the most modern combat simulators. The culture of war has its own traditions, laws and customs, rituals, ceremonies, music, art, literature, and monuments since the beginning of civilization. Throughout the ages, the culture of war has usually been highly esteemed. Not so in today's advanced countries, which tend either to mock it (military intelligence is to intelligence what military music is to music) or to denounce it as militaristic. This provocative book, the first of its kind, sets out to show how wrongheaded, and even dangerous, such attitudes are. The Culture of War argues that men and women, contrary to the hopes of some, are just as fascinated by war today as they have been in the past. A military that has lost touch with the culture of war is doomed not merely to defeat but to disintegration. Innovative, authoritative, and riveting, this is a major work by one of the world's greatest and most insightful military historians. Condition: Very good / Very good.
Keywords: War, Warriors, Rules of War, Battle, Feminism, Military Drill, Militarism, Sparta, Uniforms, War Monuments, War Games
ISBN: 9780345505408
[Book #84930]
Price: $32.50