Battle

A History Of Combat And Culture

Contributors

By John A Lynn

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$21.99

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$27.99 CAD

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  1. Trade Paperback $21.99 $27.99 CAD
  2. ebook $13.99 $17.99 CAD

This item is a preorder. Your payment method will be charged immediately, and the product is expected to ship on or around November 24, 2004. This date is subject to change due to shipping delays beyond our control.

Battle: A History of Combat and Culture spans the globe and the centuries to explore the way ideas shape the conduct of warfare. Drawing its examples from Europe, the Middle East, South Asia, East Asia, and America, John A. Lynn challenges the belief that technology has been the dominant influence on combat from ancient times to the present day. In battle, ideas can be more far more important than bullets or bombs. Clausewitz proclaimed that war is politics, but even more basically, war is culture. The hard reality of armed conflict is formed by — and, in turn, forms — a culture’s values, assumptions, and expectations about fighting. The author examines the relationship between the real and the ideal, arguing that feedback between the two follows certain discernable paths. Battle rejects the currently fashionable notion of a “Western way of warfare” and replaces it with more nuanced concepts of varied and evolving cultural patterns of combat. After considering history, Lynn finally asks how the knowledge gained might illuminate our understanding of the war on terrorism.
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On Sale
Nov 24, 2004
Page Count
464 pages
Publisher
Basic Books
ISBN-13
9780813333724

John A Lynn

About the Author

John A. Lynn, an expert on seventeenth- and eighteenth-century warfare professor, is a professor of history at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and an adjunct professor at Ohio State University. He lives in Champaign, Illinois.

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