The soul of battle : from ancient times to the present day : how three great liberators vanquished tyranny

Victor David Hanson, author of the highly regarded classic The Western Way of War , presents an audacious and controversial theory of what contributes to the success of military campaigns. Examining in riveting detail the campaigns of three brilliant generals who led largely untrained forces to victory over tyrannical enemies, Hanson shows how the moral confidence with which these generals imbued their troops may have been as significant as any military strategy they utilized. Theban general Epaminondas marched an army of farmers two hundred miles to defeat their Spartan overlords and forever change the complexion of Ancient Greece. William Tecumseh Sherman led his motley army across the South, ravaging the landscape and demoralizing the citizens in the defense of right. And George S. Patton commanded the recently formed Third Army against the German forces in the West, nearly completing the task before his superiors called a halt. Intelligent and dramatic, The Soul of Battle is narrative history at it’s best and a work of great moral conviction. "Why do men fight? What motivates an ordinary citizen to burn and kill? What, in the end, motivates an army to win?"--BOOK JACKET. "In The Soul of Battle, Victor Davis Hanson, answers these questions in a new and startling way. Hanson offers three incredible stories - the sagas of history's greatest marches - that coalesce into a single powerful theory of men and war. Each story involves a democratic army pulled together on short notice, which marched deep into enemy territory to overthrow a government whose morality was fundamentally repugnant to its own. Each army stunned the world by covering many miles and capturing huge numbers of its demoralized foes. In all three cases, Hanson argues, conviction (more than firepower) made the difference against long odds. Hanson's conclusion has far-reaching consequences in our convictionless times: right makes might."--BOOK JACKET. Argues that American generals Sherman and Patton, as well as Athenian general Epaminondas, were the greatest military leaders in history