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THE SOUL OF
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VICTOR DAVIS HANSON
AUTHOR OF TH£ WESTERN WAY OF WAR
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THE SOUL OF BATTLE
"A new book by ,.Victor Davis Hanson is always a major publishing
event and this book may well be his best.H e is fast emerging as our
foremost living military historian."
-Geoffrey Parker, co-editor of
The Reader's Companion to Military History
"This is one grenade-on-toast of a book. Like John Keegan at his
best, Victor Davis Hanson forces a reader to reconsider his para
digms about war and warmaking. Even disagreement with this
brawling, sprawling book opens new doors."
-Dennis Showalter, President, Society for Military History
"A superb book forcefully argued and narrated, profoundly medi
tated, boldly and fruitfully at odds with contemporary political
morality.V ictor Davis Hanson's subject is fundamentally about the
soul of democracy. ...H e illuminates this subject like few other re
cent writers." -The Boston Globe
"Hanson's writing is faultless, and his use of sources is unparal
leled. ...A masterful work of classical and modern history and a
compelling reading experience for anyone interested in how democ
racies wage war." -Kirkus Reviews
"Hanson's 'no prisoner taken' prose and conclusions will irritate
some classicists and World War II enthusiasts and will outrage all
defenders of the South's Lost Cause. But this book will also force all
readers to rethink their long-held views. This is gripping military
history which sweeps across the centuries to defend the necessity of
Democracy's armies destroying their enemy's heartland as the best
way to ensure the destruction of the evil these enemies represent."
-John E Marszalek, author of Sherman: A Soldier's Passion for Order
"By making an explicit link between political ideology and the per
formance of soldiers, Hanson helps restore an essential element to
discussions about the military." -The Weekly Standard
"All historians will also be challenged by [Hanson's] central thrust:
that a democratic army, campaigning for salvation and liberation
rather than conquest and repression, can have not just a spirit, but a
soul." -The Journal of Military History
"Hanson has written a thoughtful, well-reasoned study, a masterpiece
of military narrative and analysis." -Army Magazine
VictDoarvH iasn son
THE SOUL OF BATTLE
Victor Davis Hanson is Professor of Classics at California
State University's Fresno campus. He is a frequent contributor
to The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Military
History Quarterly and has written or edited several books, in
cluding The Other Greeks and The Western Way of War. He lives
with his wife and three children in Selma, California, on the
family farm on which he was born.
ALSO BY VICTOR DAVIS HANSON
Warfare and Agriculture inC lassical Greece
The WesteWrany of War: Infantry BattilnCe l assical Greece
Hoplites: The AncieGnrtee k BattElxpee rience (editor)
The OtheGrre eks: The Agrarian Rootofs We sterCniv ilization
Fields Without Dreams: Defending the Agrarian Idea
Who Killed Homer? The Demise of Classical Education and the
Recovery of Greek Wisdom (w ith John Heath)
The Wars of the AncieGnrtee ks
The Land Was Everything: Lettferorms a n American Farmer
Carnage and Culture
THES OUL
OFB ATTLE
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VICTDAVOIRS H ANSON
ANCHOR BOOKS
A Division of Random House, Inc.
New York
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INM EMORIAM
Sergeant William E Hanson (1921-1998), U.S. Army Air Corps
504th Bombing Group, 313t h Bomber Wing, 398th Squadron, Tinian
Corporal Victor Hanson (1922-1945), U.S. Marine Corps
29th Marines, 6th Marine Division, Okinawa
CONTENTS
List of Maps and Illustrations xiii
Prologue 1
PART!
YEOMEN OF THEBES
EPAMINONDAS'S DESCENT INTO THE PELOPONNESE
WINTER-SPRING, 370-369 B.C.
Chapter
1 "The Dancing Floor of War" 17
"The Boeotian Pig".
2 23
"The Fairest and Most Level Ground"
3 35
4 "The Thebans Are Mightier in War"
44
"Princeps Graeciae"
5 52
"An Altogether Cruel and Bitter Condition" .
6 62
7 "An Unravaged and Inviolate Land" . 72
8 "Nature Has Made No Man a Slave"
95
"And All of Greece Became Independent and Free" .
9 105
PART II
THAER MOYF T HWEE ST
SHERMAMNA'RSCT HO T HSEE A
NOVEMBE1R6 -DECEMB2E1R1, 8 64
Chapter
1 The Python's Parade
123
Washington, D.C., May 24, 1865
The Idea . . . 131
2
Atlanta, Georgia, November 16, 1864
The Soul of an Army .
3 148
Madison, Georgia, November 201,86 4
4 Where ls the Enemy? .
169
Griswoldville, Georgia, November 221,86 4
5 An Apartheid Society.
188
Milledgeville, Georgia, November 24, 1864
Uncle Billy .
6 212
Millen Georgia, December 3, 1864
7 The End and the Beginning . .
232
Savannah, Georgia, December 21, 1864
