Book Review: The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire by Luttwak

February 14th, 2011 by zen

Nor does Luttwak make any pretense of bowing to rhetorical academic conventions. He does not soften his language anywhere, referring for example to the later wars between the Empire and Arab potentates as “jihad” and “crusade” and draws clear connections between the wars of Byzantium and the wars today with al Qaida, the Taliban and Iraq or the continuity between old  Persia and Ahmadinejad’s Iran. Luttwak freely injects modern terminology into archaic subjects and generally writes as he pleases, meandering whenever details of a topic interest him. His endnotes though, are a rich source of further commentary and observations and the bibliography runs for an additional seventeen pages.

Strongly recommended.

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Posted in academia, analytic, ancient history, authors, book, DIME, history, ideas, intellectuals, military, reading, strategist, strategy, Strategy and War, war | 2 comments

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  1. Lexington Green:

    February 14th, 2011 at 7:47 pm

    That sounds awesome.  Too backed up to even hope to get to it anytime soon, though.  

  2. zen:

    February 15th, 2011 at 5:45 am

    It was very good. In the running for best book of 2011 post.