Please note that I maintain a portfolio on Scribd.com and my papers listed here are available by clicking the "link to Scribd" icon.
I am an independent consultant providing expertise to the United States Defense community. In September, 2011, I completed my MA in History (Ancient and Classical) from American Military University; almost 30 years after receiving my BS in Industrial Technology from Texas A&M University (College Station, Texas, USA). Between 1980 and 2001, I worked in the Aerospace Industry as a Manufacturing Engineer. I also served as a US Naval Reserve Intelligence Officer, retiring with the rank of Commander. After the 2001 attacks upon the United States, I was called to active Naval service for a time. After, I left the aerospace industry to support my country's defense and have worked as an intelligence analyst. I have particular interests in the application of Social Network Analysis and Complex Adaptive Systems to Asymmetric Warfare and illuminating Covert Human Networks; the history of technology, particularly during the medieval and early modern era in Europe; national- and military- intelligence studies; public policy related to terrorism and the use of "weapons of strategic influence" such as Improvised Explosive Devices and Improvised Weapons of Mass Destruction; and, ancient military history. Address: Round Hill, Virginia, USA
ACCESS USING THE SCRIBD.COM URL ABOVE.... Robert Grosseteste (c. 1168-1253), an English, Catholic... more ACCESS USING THE SCRIBD.COM URL ABOVE.... Robert Grosseteste (c. 1168-1253), an English, Catholic theologian, learned many theological concepts through the study of the works of earlier theologians. For example, he derived an understanding of divine Justice and Mercy, as a concept, from Gregory the Great’s Moralia in Iob; and expressed his views upon it often, in his letters. Later, his papers fell under the eye of John Wycliff (1328-1384), who, in turn, incorporated many Grossetestean views into his own theology; including those about Justice and Mercy Grosseteste derived from Gregory. This thesis examines the transmission of Gregory’s conceptualization of Justice and Mercy to Wycliff, through the medium of Grosseteste’s letters. This researcher examined the Moralia, Grosseteste’s letters, and Wycliff’s English Sermons, seeking evidence of a common conceptualization of Justice and Mercy. Analysis of the results support the idea that Grosseteste founded his beliefs about Justice and Mercy upon views expressed in Gregory’s Moralia and, giving them expression in his letters, influenced Wycliff’s theological position relative to the same.
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Tentative Title:
Signs of Change: Conceptualizations ... more ACCESS USING THE SCRIBD.COM URL ABOVE.... Tentative Title:
Signs of Change: Conceptualizations of Justice and Mercy in 13th Century Christianity in the Letters of Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln
Tentative Thesis:
Robert Grosseteste’s conceptualization of justice and mercy, expressed in his extant letters, differed from the normative theological stance held by his 13th century contemporaries and prefigured those of 16th century Protestant Reformation theologians.
ACCESS USING THE SCRIBD.COM URL ABOVE....
Bentley strives to avoid the word "civilization" in hi... more ACCESS USING THE SCRIBD.COM URL ABOVE.... Bentley strives to avoid the word "civilization" in his 1997 "Shapes of World History in Twentieth-century Scholarship" because of its "Western elitist connotations." Instead, he labels societal groups of supra-national scope as "complex societies." Although Bentley does not explicitly tie his references to "complexity" to the multidisciplinary literature on the subject, by comparing four principal characteristics of complexity, discussed in a standard text, to the usage in his essay and its focus on civilizations (or, rather, large-scale complex societies), Bentley indicates that he possessed a valid understanding of complexity and properly applied the term in this essay.
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Warfare is a martial art. It has, for millennia, been ... more ACCESS USING THE SCRIBD.COM URL ABOVE.... Warfare is a martial art. It has, for millennia, been learned through intense practice, usually overseen by an older exemplar or master. The skills of Greek warriors, wrestling; using the sword, spear, bow and sling; horsemanship; attention to orders amongst chaos; and, the care and feeding of men and equipment were no exception. By the time Epaminondas of Thebes invaded Laconia, a change in the military art was underway that included increasingly sophisticated tactics, fluid modes of combat, and sophisticated new equipment whose mastery demanded full-time soldiers and intelligent, trained leaders. There is valid evidence supporting the assertions of modern historians—such as Victor Davis Hanson, Paul Cartledge, and Peter Green—that developments in military science made in the waning years of the Peloponnesian War and immediately after were learned by Philip of Macedon from his exposure to older practitioners of war. Philip, who embellished military science with his own innovations, redesigning his armies in the process; then passed a legacy of knowledge to Alexander the Great. The evidence is based upon personal associations and the use of similar tactics.
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The Roman Army provided homeland security and power pr... more ACCESS USING THE SCRIBD.COM URL ABOVE.... The Roman Army provided homeland security and power projection to its patrons from 753 BC to the end of the Western Empire in the 5th century AD. The Army evolved over these twelve centuries, as did the culture that manned and equipped it. The Republican Army of the mid-Republic (3rd-2nd centuries BC) grew out of a militia ethos. Roman Citizens—propertied men—served, providing their own equipment, after being recruited for the duration of a war. These soldiers viewed their service not a career but a duty owed to the gods and their fellows. This was the army Rome used to conquer Italy and Carthage, becoming the dominant regional power. The Professional Army of the Empire (1st century BC to early 3rd century AD) arose out of Rome’s expanded territory which meant fighting wars farther from Rome for longer periods of time than a militia army could withstand. The men attracted to long service on the borders of the Empire were now men of less economic standing—whose loyalty to Rome was embodied in the immediate person of their General. This change in how the army was manned allowed a single man to consolidate military power and its use destroyed the Republic in favor of Empire. The Roman Army of Late Antiquity (3rd to 5th centuries AD), though still a professional fighting force, had changed to meet increasing threats from external enemies and internal civil wars. New types of units and equipment were fielded to cope with the changed strategic landscape.
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When one measures a Civilization, like the Byzantine E... more ACCESS USING THE SCRIBD.COM URL ABOVE.... When one measures a Civilization, like the Byzantine Empire, the most effective unit of measure is the number of persons over which it exerts domination or influence. Domination, or perhaps governance, is based upon the subjugation of individual sovereignty to another person or to a ruling group. This subjugation is accomplished through the use of persuasion and exploitation. Such persuasion can be peaceful and sometimes voluntarily, in the case of diplomacy or implicit trust. Often, however, domination is achieved violently and involuntarily—through the application of military force and/or economic exploitation, in the imposition of taxation or tariff. Influence is based upon the voluntary adoption of varied cultural attributes, such as religion, or through the exchange of economic value in trade goods and raw materials. The ability of a sovereign power to maintain and expand its dominance and influence is essentially sustained by internal harmony. This harmony is created when a focused, unchallenged authority is able to implement a successful concept of operations, using a successfully mobilized populace (i.e., those already dominated or influenced). This historian concurs with Ostrogorsky’s assertion that the reign of Emperor Basil II (r. 960-1025) represented the zenith of the Byzantine Empire’s dominance and influence. After the death of Basil II on 15 December 1025, it was essentially “all downhill”.
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Rome used military force to wage war against foreign e... more ACCESS USING THE SCRIBD.COM URL ABOVE.... Rome used military force to wage war against foreign enemies; to maintain law and order within the boundaries of the Republic and Empire; and, to execute sophisticated engineering and administrative tasks. The “Roman Way of War” encompassed specific strategic, operational, and tactical characteristics that were refined over time. This essay will briefly describe the principle characteristics of the roman military paradigm from these three points of view.
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The evolution of the organized Roman Army, from its “r... more ACCESS USING THE SCRIBD.COM URL ABOVE.... The evolution of the organized Roman Army, from its “royal” incarnation in the late 6th century B.C. into the 2nd century Army of the Republic, was predominately reflected in its battle order (formation, organization and tactics) and its equipment. This essay will briefly describe the Roman Army of both periods, focusing on these two aspects, and examine the forces and/or events that stimulated the changes.
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Between 500 and 1000 CE, the Roman Catholic Church pla... more ACCESS USING THE SCRIBD.COM URL ABOVE.... Between 500 and 1000 CE, the Roman Catholic Church played three significant roles in the continuity and revival of Western Civilization. These roles may be examined in light of their correspondence with aspects of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and the Church, perhaps in its role as shepherd of Christ’s flock, was able to satisfy strong psychological needs.
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John Ferling. Adams vs. Jefferson: The Tumultuous Elec... more ACCESS USING THE SCRIBD.COM URL ABOVE.... John Ferling. Adams vs. Jefferson: The Tumultuous Election of 1800. New York: Oxford University Press. 2004. xx + 260 pp. Plutarch once admitted that, “I must be allowed to give my particular attention to the marks and indications of men’s souls, as I endeavor to portray their lives.” In Adams vs. Jefferson: The Tumultuous Election of 1800, John Ferling continues giving his attention to the souls of early American leaders, particularly Washington, Adams and Jefferson. The 1800 United States presidential election was “a collision of three republican ideas” (p. 12) championed by Adams, Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton which delivered the first peaceful—though fraught with partisan strife—change of leadership to the new republic.
ACCESS USING THE SCRIBD.COM URL ABOVE.... Bainton begins his fascinating and illuminating landmar... more ACCESS USING THE SCRIBD.COM URL ABOVE.... Bainton begins his fascinating and illuminating landmark biography of Martin Luther with his decision, at age 22, to become a monk after being trapped outside in the midst of a raging storm and surviving close lightning strikes after an appeal to his father’s patron saint, St. Anne. This episode provides an ironic introduction to Bainton’s telling of Luther’s life—which, after his embrace of monasticism, would lead to a shattered medieval Catholicism. At the time of Bainton’s death in 1984, this book had sold over a million copies and had become the “standard popular biography for Luther.” Bainton wrote Here I Stand at the approximate mid-point of his sixty-plus year career as a historian of the Renaissance. For this reviewer, the book proved to provide great insights into the nature of persecution, toleration and the role of ideologues in expanding, distorting and worsening a conceptual rift that might have been healed, if radical minds had not rubbed the salt of invective and polemic into offended persons on both sides of Luther’s persuasive return to Scriptural authority
An Academic Book Review of Denys Hay, The Italian Renaissance in its Historical Background, xii +... more An Academic Book Review of Denys Hay, The Italian Renaissance in its Historical Background, xii + 218 pp., 24 ill., 2 maps Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1961. Denys Hay’s book appeared in the early 1960s, when social history and its proponents had begun to transform western historiography. History, particularly medieval and “early modern history,” was still much influenced by document-centric inquiry, still insisting on defining unique periods, and still tending to think in terms of national contexts. Not many years later, postmodernism’s relativism would storm and rage against the “progress view of history” which, in Renaissance terms, meant Burckhardt’s book, Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy. It is during this interregnum that Hay writes his book, purposely intending “to provoke an unbiased and fresh appeal of a phase in Italian and European history which has, more than most such ‘periods’, suffered from traditional and stereotyped treatment, above all by being dealt with as static and solid.”
R.L. Fox: Travelling Heroes in the Age of Homer. Pp 465; 8 maps; 4 illustrations; 26 photographs.... more R.L. Fox: Travelling Heroes in the Age of Homer. Pp 465; 8 maps; 4 illustrations; 26 photographs. New York: Random House, 2008. $32.50. In Travelling Heroes in the Age of Homer, Robin Lane Fox thoroughly examines the possibility that in the eighth century BC, migrants and merchant travelers from the island of Euboea settled in specific places in the Near East and in Italy—and that the myths, stories and themes they found there leached into their own folktales and, in time, became background for the classic poetry of Homer and Hesiod. He introduces us to the eighth century BC and tests the origins of the ideas and icons that have shaped the western world. He leads us to examine, with him, the trail of the Euboean travelers who brought regional myths into the communal cauldron of ideas from which Homer and Hesiod prepared their poetry.
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P. Cartledge: The Spartans: The World of the Warrior-H... more ACCESS USING THE SCRIBD.COM URL ABOVE.... P. Cartledge: The Spartans: The World of the Warrior-Heroes of Ancient Greece, from Utopia to Crisis and Collapse. Pp 304; 1 table; 4 maps; 4 illustrations; 25 photographs. Woodstock, New York: Overlook Press, 2002. $35.00.
Paul Cartledge’s enjoyable history, The Spartans: The World of the Warrior-Heroes of Ancient Greece, from Utopia to Crisis and Collapse (2002), is his first properly general book on the Spartans, created with the “intent of mediating history to a wide public” (10). Cartledge uses a clean narrative style to relate the events, sparing the reader from mental exhaustion by inserting a series of short biographical sketches illustrative of the principle men, and the few women, who figured prominently in the cultural, political and military events that shaped events—using the sketches to deliver background necessary to a fuller and more nuanced understanding of the events.
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The decline of the Roman Empire has intrigued scholars... more ACCESS USING THE SCRIBD.COM URL ABOVE.... The decline of the Roman Empire has intrigued scholars for centuries—with some trying to understand the events while others attempted to eke out lessons for their contemporaries’ edification. Regardless of intent or interpretation, in the mid-third century AD the Roman Empire in the west disappeared and, in the east, became a Greek kingdom that continued for another thousand years. The dominant interpretations of the events, arising over the past 200 years, are varied and thoughtful. Gibbon, in his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1781), attributed the events to a ‘triumph of Barbarism and Religion’. Spengler resorted to a biological analogy to suggest that the decline was a natural, foreseeable process. Toynbee asserted that the Roman Empire was the inheritor and successor of a Hellenic Society that began declining due to the Peloponnesian War. Others refused to acknowledge a decline at all and assert that a natural evolutionary process transformed the Roman Empire into the European medieval world.
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In 1931-45, Japan occupied much of China and memories ... more ACCESS USING THE SCRIBD.COM URL ABOVE.... In 1931-45, Japan occupied much of China and memories of Japanese atrocities persist, especially concerning the 1937-38 Nanjing Massacre. The death estimates vary between the Chinese 300,000 deaths and conservative Japanese notions rejecting the event totally. The Massacre has not figured prominently in American history, probably because it occurred four years before the USA declared war.
The dominant story, exemplified in Chang’s The Rape of Nanjing: the Forgotten Holocaust of World War II (1997), raised American public awareness by positioning the event within the milieu of WW2; and comparing the event to the Jewish Holocaust. Chang admitted she sought to inflame Americans into activism by drawing comparisons between Germany—who admitted its wartime atrocities, paid restitution, and asked forgiveness—and Japan. Here, I briefly examine the accusations made against Japanese “revisionists”; the accusers and their motives, and whether the Nanjing-as-holocaust accusation is accurate or valuable.
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A land and sea battle occurred between Egypt and the “... more ACCESS USING THE SCRIBD.COM URL ABOVE.... A land and sea battle occurred between Egypt and the “Sea Peoples” (Inhabitants of the ‘Lands of the Very Green Sea’) in 1174 BCE, early in the reign of Rameses III. Three years before, enemies, possibly from southern Asia Minor and the Aegean, had sent ships to aid the Libyans in war against Egypt. The battles of 1174 are described in texts and illustrations on the walls of Rameses' funerary temple at Medinet Habu. While intended to support political and religious ideology, the extensive sculptural reliefs and inscriptions do illuminate Egyptian warfare and may provide notionally accurate depictions of the battle. This paper will examine the sea battle and the naval tactics, weapons and organization exemplified there.
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Pottery, Horses, and Bows: Technologies Critical to An... more ACCESS USING THE SCRIBD.COM URL ABOVE.... Pottery, Horses, and Bows: Technologies Critical to Ancient Near Eastern and Mediterranean Warfare. Over the course of centuries, land warfare in the Near Eastern and Mediterranean Ancient world progressed through four dominant paradigms. The earliest form of warfare was manifestly chaotic and characterized by groups of combatants fighting each other in fierce melee. Later, realizing there was safety in numbers, the massing of trained, disciplined warriors, exemplified by the Mycenaean and Macedonian phalanx, allowed the precise application of intense brute force in a bloody shoving match along a single axis, overcoming any undisciplined mob to stand against it. Eventually; the phalanx was overcome by nimble legionary forces capable of executing enveloping or flanking movements using attached cavalry to apply a mobile mass at a decisive point. Finally, the legions were defeated by swarming forces of fast, rapid-fire units conducting pulsed attacks from many directions. Each successive paradigm (chaotic melee, brute force massing, nimble maneuver, and swarming attack) supplemented rather than displaced the previous paradigm. Each transition was facilitated by a technological advance that made possible a significant improvement in one or more of the main characteristics of military capability: lethality, mobility, survivability, sustainability and C3I (command, control communications and intelligence). This essay will identify three principle technologies that allowed the paradigm shifts and briefly discuss the capabilities, synergy and advantages each brought to the battlefield.
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In 421 BC, the tenth year of the Peloponnesian war, de... more ACCESS USING THE SCRIBD.COM URL ABOVE.... In 421 BC, the tenth year of the Peloponnesian war, democratic Athens and oligarchic Sparta, on behalf of their respective coalitions (or empires) signed a 50-year peace treaty and, soon after, a separate defensive alliance. It is evident from subsequent events that the agreement reached by Athens and Sparta did not achieve its aims as several members of the coalitions failed to endorse the treaty, remaining belligerent towards members of the opposing coalition, and most of the treaty’s provisions went more or less unfulfilled. Only 3 years later, Spartan and Athenian troops faced each other at Mantinea in a battle that rekindled hostilities between the two principal powers.
This paper is based on research of the principal primary source, Thucydides, and several of the prominent secondary sources; performed to educate myself as to the conditions that stimulated the negotiation and signing of the Peace of Nicias, the conditions of the treaty, the implications of those conditions, the treaty’s effects upon the combatants, and the political and historical forces that led to the treaty’s failure to keep the peace. I will endeavor to briefly address the above points, presenting my assessments as to the events and their circumstances.
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Miscellaneous Essays on the Roman Republic and Empire.... more ACCESS USING THE SCRIBD.COM URL ABOVE.... Miscellaneous Essays on the Roman Republic and Empire. On Constitutional and Social Constructs of the early Roman Republic. On Roman Warfare. On the Collapse of the Roman Republic. On the Contributions of Rome to Western Civilization.
ACCESS USING THE SCRIBD.COM URL ABOVE.... Robert Grosseteste (c. 1168-1253), an English, Catholic... more ACCESS USING THE SCRIBD.COM URL ABOVE.... Robert Grosseteste (c. 1168-1253), an English, Catholic theologian, learned many theological concepts through the study of the works of earlier theologians. For example, he derived an understanding of divine Justice and Mercy, as a concept, from Gregory the Great’s Moralia in Iob; and expressed his views upon it often, in his letters. Later, his papers fell under the eye of John Wycliff (1328-1384), who, in turn, incorporated many Grossetestean views into his own theology; including those about Justice and Mercy Grosseteste derived from Gregory. This thesis examines the transmission of Gregory’s conceptualization of Justice and Mercy to Wycliff, through the medium of Grosseteste’s letters. This researcher examined the Moralia, Grosseteste’s letters, and Wycliff’s English Sermons, seeking evidence of a common conceptualization of Justice and Mercy. Analysis of the results support the idea that Grosseteste founded his beliefs about Justice and Mercy upon views expressed in Gregory’s Moralia and, giving them expression in his letters, influenced Wycliff’s theological position relative to the same.
ACCESS USING THE SCRIBD.COM URL ABOVE....
Tentative Title:
Signs of Change: Conceptualizations ... more ACCESS USING THE SCRIBD.COM URL ABOVE.... Tentative Title:
Signs of Change: Conceptualizations of Justice and Mercy in 13th Century Christianity in the Letters of Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln
Tentative Thesis:
Robert Grosseteste’s conceptualization of justice and mercy, expressed in his extant letters, differed from the normative theological stance held by his 13th century contemporaries and prefigured those of 16th century Protestant Reformation theologians.
ACCESS USING THE SCRIBD.COM URL ABOVE....
Bentley strives to avoid the word "civilization" in hi... more ACCESS USING THE SCRIBD.COM URL ABOVE.... Bentley strives to avoid the word "civilization" in his 1997 "Shapes of World History in Twentieth-century Scholarship" because of its "Western elitist connotations." Instead, he labels societal groups of supra-national scope as "complex societies." Although Bentley does not explicitly tie his references to "complexity" to the multidisciplinary literature on the subject, by comparing four principal characteristics of complexity, discussed in a standard text, to the usage in his essay and its focus on civilizations (or, rather, large-scale complex societies), Bentley indicates that he possessed a valid understanding of complexity and properly applied the term in this essay.
ACCESS USING THE SCRIBD.COM URL ABOVE....
Warfare is a martial art. It has, for millennia, been ... more ACCESS USING THE SCRIBD.COM URL ABOVE.... Warfare is a martial art. It has, for millennia, been learned through intense practice, usually overseen by an older exemplar or master. The skills of Greek warriors, wrestling; using the sword, spear, bow and sling; horsemanship; attention to orders amongst chaos; and, the care and feeding of men and equipment were no exception. By the time Epaminondas of Thebes invaded Laconia, a change in the military art was underway that included increasingly sophisticated tactics, fluid modes of combat, and sophisticated new equipment whose mastery demanded full-time soldiers and intelligent, trained leaders. There is valid evidence supporting the assertions of modern historians—such as Victor Davis Hanson, Paul Cartledge, and Peter Green—that developments in military science made in the waning years of the Peloponnesian War and immediately after were learned by Philip of Macedon from his exposure to older practitioners of war. Philip, who embellished military science with his own innovations, redesigning his armies in the process; then passed a legacy of knowledge to Alexander the Great. The evidence is based upon personal associations and the use of similar tactics.
ACCESS USING THE SCRIBD.COM URL ABOVE....
The Roman Army provided homeland security and power pr... more ACCESS USING THE SCRIBD.COM URL ABOVE.... The Roman Army provided homeland security and power projection to its patrons from 753 BC to the end of the Western Empire in the 5th century AD. The Army evolved over these twelve centuries, as did the culture that manned and equipped it. The Republican Army of the mid-Republic (3rd-2nd centuries BC) grew out of a militia ethos. Roman Citizens—propertied men—served, providing their own equipment, after being recruited for the duration of a war. These soldiers viewed their service not a career but a duty owed to the gods and their fellows. This was the army Rome used to conquer Italy and Carthage, becoming the dominant regional power. The Professional Army of the Empire (1st century BC to early 3rd century AD) arose out of Rome’s expanded territory which meant fighting wars farther from Rome for longer periods of time than a militia army could withstand. The men attracted to long service on the borders of the Empire were now men of less economic standing—whose loyalty to Rome was embodied in the immediate person of their General. This change in how the army was manned allowed a single man to consolidate military power and its use destroyed the Republic in favor of Empire. The Roman Army of Late Antiquity (3rd to 5th centuries AD), though still a professional fighting force, had changed to meet increasing threats from external enemies and internal civil wars. New types of units and equipment were fielded to cope with the changed strategic landscape.
ACCESS USING THE SCRIBD.COM URL ABOVE....
When one measures a Civilization, like the Byzantine E... more ACCESS USING THE SCRIBD.COM URL ABOVE.... When one measures a Civilization, like the Byzantine Empire, the most effective unit of measure is the number of persons over which it exerts domination or influence. Domination, or perhaps governance, is based upon the subjugation of individual sovereignty to another person or to a ruling group. This subjugation is accomplished through the use of persuasion and exploitation. Such persuasion can be peaceful and sometimes voluntarily, in the case of diplomacy or implicit trust. Often, however, domination is achieved violently and involuntarily—through the application of military force and/or economic exploitation, in the imposition of taxation or tariff. Influence is based upon the voluntary adoption of varied cultural attributes, such as religion, or through the exchange of economic value in trade goods and raw materials. The ability of a sovereign power to maintain and expand its dominance and influence is essentially sustained by internal harmony. This harmony is created when a focused, unchallenged authority is able to implement a successful concept of operations, using a successfully mobilized populace (i.e., those already dominated or influenced). This historian concurs with Ostrogorsky’s assertion that the reign of Emperor Basil II (r. 960-1025) represented the zenith of the Byzantine Empire’s dominance and influence. After the death of Basil II on 15 December 1025, it was essentially “all downhill”.
ACCESS USING THE SCRIBD.COM URL ABOVE....
Rome used military force to wage war against foreign e... more ACCESS USING THE SCRIBD.COM URL ABOVE.... Rome used military force to wage war against foreign enemies; to maintain law and order within the boundaries of the Republic and Empire; and, to execute sophisticated engineering and administrative tasks. The “Roman Way of War” encompassed specific strategic, operational, and tactical characteristics that were refined over time. This essay will briefly describe the principle characteristics of the roman military paradigm from these three points of view.
ACCESS USING THE SCRIBD.COM URL ABOVE....
The evolution of the organized Roman Army, from its “r... more ACCESS USING THE SCRIBD.COM URL ABOVE.... The evolution of the organized Roman Army, from its “royal” incarnation in the late 6th century B.C. into the 2nd century Army of the Republic, was predominately reflected in its battle order (formation, organization and tactics) and its equipment. This essay will briefly describe the Roman Army of both periods, focusing on these two aspects, and examine the forces and/or events that stimulated the changes.
ACCESS USING THE SCRIBD.COM URL ABOVE....
Between 500 and 1000 CE, the Roman Catholic Church pla... more ACCESS USING THE SCRIBD.COM URL ABOVE.... Between 500 and 1000 CE, the Roman Catholic Church played three significant roles in the continuity and revival of Western Civilization. These roles may be examined in light of their correspondence with aspects of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and the Church, perhaps in its role as shepherd of Christ’s flock, was able to satisfy strong psychological needs.
ACCESS USING THE SCRIBD.COM URL ABOVE....
John Ferling. Adams vs. Jefferson: The Tumultuous Elec... more ACCESS USING THE SCRIBD.COM URL ABOVE.... John Ferling. Adams vs. Jefferson: The Tumultuous Election of 1800. New York: Oxford University Press. 2004. xx + 260 pp. Plutarch once admitted that, “I must be allowed to give my particular attention to the marks and indications of men’s souls, as I endeavor to portray their lives.” In Adams vs. Jefferson: The Tumultuous Election of 1800, John Ferling continues giving his attention to the souls of early American leaders, particularly Washington, Adams and Jefferson. The 1800 United States presidential election was “a collision of three republican ideas” (p. 12) championed by Adams, Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton which delivered the first peaceful—though fraught with partisan strife—change of leadership to the new republic.
ACCESS USING THE SCRIBD.COM URL ABOVE.... Bainton begins his fascinating and illuminating landmar... more ACCESS USING THE SCRIBD.COM URL ABOVE.... Bainton begins his fascinating and illuminating landmark biography of Martin Luther with his decision, at age 22, to become a monk after being trapped outside in the midst of a raging storm and surviving close lightning strikes after an appeal to his father’s patron saint, St. Anne. This episode provides an ironic introduction to Bainton’s telling of Luther’s life—which, after his embrace of monasticism, would lead to a shattered medieval Catholicism. At the time of Bainton’s death in 1984, this book had sold over a million copies and had become the “standard popular biography for Luther.” Bainton wrote Here I Stand at the approximate mid-point of his sixty-plus year career as a historian of the Renaissance. For this reviewer, the book proved to provide great insights into the nature of persecution, toleration and the role of ideologues in expanding, distorting and worsening a conceptual rift that might have been healed, if radical minds had not rubbed the salt of invective and polemic into offended persons on both sides of Luther’s persuasive return to Scriptural authority
An Academic Book Review of Denys Hay, The Italian Renaissance in its Historical Background, xii +... more An Academic Book Review of Denys Hay, The Italian Renaissance in its Historical Background, xii + 218 pp., 24 ill., 2 maps Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1961. Denys Hay’s book appeared in the early 1960s, when social history and its proponents had begun to transform western historiography. History, particularly medieval and “early modern history,” was still much influenced by document-centric inquiry, still insisting on defining unique periods, and still tending to think in terms of national contexts. Not many years later, postmodernism’s relativism would storm and rage against the “progress view of history” which, in Renaissance terms, meant Burckhardt’s book, Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy. It is during this interregnum that Hay writes his book, purposely intending “to provoke an unbiased and fresh appeal of a phase in Italian and European history which has, more than most such ‘periods’, suffered from traditional and stereotyped treatment, above all by being dealt with as static and solid.”
R.L. Fox: Travelling Heroes in the Age of Homer. Pp 465; 8 maps; 4 illustrations; 26 photographs.... more R.L. Fox: Travelling Heroes in the Age of Homer. Pp 465; 8 maps; 4 illustrations; 26 photographs. New York: Random House, 2008. $32.50. In Travelling Heroes in the Age of Homer, Robin Lane Fox thoroughly examines the possibility that in the eighth century BC, migrants and merchant travelers from the island of Euboea settled in specific places in the Near East and in Italy—and that the myths, stories and themes they found there leached into their own folktales and, in time, became background for the classic poetry of Homer and Hesiod. He introduces us to the eighth century BC and tests the origins of the ideas and icons that have shaped the western world. He leads us to examine, with him, the trail of the Euboean travelers who brought regional myths into the communal cauldron of ideas from which Homer and Hesiod prepared their poetry.
ACCESS USING THE SCRIBD.COM URL ABOVE....
P. Cartledge: The Spartans: The World of the Warrior-H... more ACCESS USING THE SCRIBD.COM URL ABOVE.... P. Cartledge: The Spartans: The World of the Warrior-Heroes of Ancient Greece, from Utopia to Crisis and Collapse. Pp 304; 1 table; 4 maps; 4 illustrations; 25 photographs. Woodstock, New York: Overlook Press, 2002. $35.00.
Paul Cartledge’s enjoyable history, The Spartans: The World of the Warrior-Heroes of Ancient Greece, from Utopia to Crisis and Collapse (2002), is his first properly general book on the Spartans, created with the “intent of mediating history to a wide public” (10). Cartledge uses a clean narrative style to relate the events, sparing the reader from mental exhaustion by inserting a series of short biographical sketches illustrative of the principle men, and the few women, who figured prominently in the cultural, political and military events that shaped events—using the sketches to deliver background necessary to a fuller and more nuanced understanding of the events.
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The decline of the Roman Empire has intrigued scholars... more ACCESS USING THE SCRIBD.COM URL ABOVE.... The decline of the Roman Empire has intrigued scholars for centuries—with some trying to understand the events while others attempted to eke out lessons for their contemporaries’ edification. Regardless of intent or interpretation, in the mid-third century AD the Roman Empire in the west disappeared and, in the east, became a Greek kingdom that continued for another thousand years. The dominant interpretations of the events, arising over the past 200 years, are varied and thoughtful. Gibbon, in his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1781), attributed the events to a ‘triumph of Barbarism and Religion’. Spengler resorted to a biological analogy to suggest that the decline was a natural, foreseeable process. Toynbee asserted that the Roman Empire was the inheritor and successor of a Hellenic Society that began declining due to the Peloponnesian War. Others refused to acknowledge a decline at all and assert that a natural evolutionary process transformed the Roman Empire into the European medieval world.
ACCESS USING THE SCRIBD.COM URL ABOVE....
In 1931-45, Japan occupied much of China and memories ... more ACCESS USING THE SCRIBD.COM URL ABOVE.... In 1931-45, Japan occupied much of China and memories of Japanese atrocities persist, especially concerning the 1937-38 Nanjing Massacre. The death estimates vary between the Chinese 300,000 deaths and conservative Japanese notions rejecting the event totally. The Massacre has not figured prominently in American history, probably because it occurred four years before the USA declared war.
The dominant story, exemplified in Chang’s The Rape of Nanjing: the Forgotten Holocaust of World War II (1997), raised American public awareness by positioning the event within the milieu of WW2; and comparing the event to the Jewish Holocaust. Chang admitted she sought to inflame Americans into activism by drawing comparisons between Germany—who admitted its wartime atrocities, paid restitution, and asked forgiveness—and Japan. Here, I briefly examine the accusations made against Japanese “revisionists”; the accusers and their motives, and whether the Nanjing-as-holocaust accusation is accurate or valuable.
ACCESS USING THE SCRIBD.COM URL ABOVE....
A land and sea battle occurred between Egypt and the “... more ACCESS USING THE SCRIBD.COM URL ABOVE.... A land and sea battle occurred between Egypt and the “Sea Peoples” (Inhabitants of the ‘Lands of the Very Green Sea’) in 1174 BCE, early in the reign of Rameses III. Three years before, enemies, possibly from southern Asia Minor and the Aegean, had sent ships to aid the Libyans in war against Egypt. The battles of 1174 are described in texts and illustrations on the walls of Rameses' funerary temple at Medinet Habu. While intended to support political and religious ideology, the extensive sculptural reliefs and inscriptions do illuminate Egyptian warfare and may provide notionally accurate depictions of the battle. This paper will examine the sea battle and the naval tactics, weapons and organization exemplified there.
ACCESS USING THE SCRIBD.COM URL ABOVE....
Pottery, Horses, and Bows: Technologies Critical to An... more ACCESS USING THE SCRIBD.COM URL ABOVE.... Pottery, Horses, and Bows: Technologies Critical to Ancient Near Eastern and Mediterranean Warfare. Over the course of centuries, land warfare in the Near Eastern and Mediterranean Ancient world progressed through four dominant paradigms. The earliest form of warfare was manifestly chaotic and characterized by groups of combatants fighting each other in fierce melee. Later, realizing there was safety in numbers, the massing of trained, disciplined warriors, exemplified by the Mycenaean and Macedonian phalanx, allowed the precise application of intense brute force in a bloody shoving match along a single axis, overcoming any undisciplined mob to stand against it. Eventually; the phalanx was overcome by nimble legionary forces capable of executing enveloping or flanking movements using attached cavalry to apply a mobile mass at a decisive point. Finally, the legions were defeated by swarming forces of fast, rapid-fire units conducting pulsed attacks from many directions. Each successive paradigm (chaotic melee, brute force massing, nimble maneuver, and swarming attack) supplemented rather than displaced the previous paradigm. Each transition was facilitated by a technological advance that made possible a significant improvement in one or more of the main characteristics of military capability: lethality, mobility, survivability, sustainability and C3I (command, control communications and intelligence). This essay will identify three principle technologies that allowed the paradigm shifts and briefly discuss the capabilities, synergy and advantages each brought to the battlefield.
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In 421 BC, the tenth year of the Peloponnesian war, de... more ACCESS USING THE SCRIBD.COM URL ABOVE.... In 421 BC, the tenth year of the Peloponnesian war, democratic Athens and oligarchic Sparta, on behalf of their respective coalitions (or empires) signed a 50-year peace treaty and, soon after, a separate defensive alliance. It is evident from subsequent events that the agreement reached by Athens and Sparta did not achieve its aims as several members of the coalitions failed to endorse the treaty, remaining belligerent towards members of the opposing coalition, and most of the treaty’s provisions went more or less unfulfilled. Only 3 years later, Spartan and Athenian troops faced each other at Mantinea in a battle that rekindled hostilities between the two principal powers.
This paper is based on research of the principal primary source, Thucydides, and several of the prominent secondary sources; performed to educate myself as to the conditions that stimulated the negotiation and signing of the Peace of Nicias, the conditions of the treaty, the implications of those conditions, the treaty’s effects upon the combatants, and the political and historical forces that led to the treaty’s failure to keep the peace. I will endeavor to briefly address the above points, presenting my assessments as to the events and their circumstances.
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Miscellaneous Essays on the Roman Republic and Empire.... more ACCESS USING THE SCRIBD.COM URL ABOVE.... Miscellaneous Essays on the Roman Republic and Empire. On Constitutional and Social Constructs of the early Roman Republic. On Roman Warfare. On the Collapse of the Roman Republic. On the Contributions of Rome to Western Civilization.
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Papers by David G Terrell
Tentative Title:
Signs of Change: Conceptualizations of Justice and Mercy in 13th Century Christianity in the Letters of Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln
Tentative Thesis:
Robert Grosseteste’s conceptualization of justice and mercy, expressed in his extant letters, differed from the normative theological stance held by his 13th century contemporaries and prefigured those of 16th century Protestant Reformation theologians.
Bentley strives to avoid the word "civilization" in his 1997 "Shapes of World History in Twentieth-century Scholarship" because of its "Western elitist connotations." Instead, he labels societal groups of supra-national scope as "complex societies." Although Bentley does not explicitly tie his references to "complexity" to the multidisciplinary literature on the subject, by comparing four principal characteristics of complexity, discussed in a standard text, to the usage in his essay and its focus on civilizations (or, rather, large-scale complex societies), Bentley indicates that he possessed a valid understanding of complexity and properly applied the term in this essay.
Warfare is a martial art. It has, for millennia, been learned through intense practice, usually overseen by an older exemplar or master. The skills of Greek warriors, wrestling; using the sword, spear, bow and sling; horsemanship; attention to orders amongst chaos; and, the care and feeding of men and equipment were no exception. By the time Epaminondas of Thebes invaded Laconia, a change in the military art was underway that included increasingly sophisticated tactics, fluid modes of combat, and sophisticated new equipment whose mastery demanded full-time soldiers and intelligent, trained leaders. There is valid evidence supporting the assertions of modern historians—such as Victor Davis Hanson, Paul Cartledge, and Peter Green—that developments in military science made in the waning years of the Peloponnesian War and immediately after were learned by Philip of Macedon from his exposure to older practitioners of war. Philip, who embellished military science with his own innovations, redesigning his armies in the process; then passed a legacy of knowledge to Alexander the Great. The evidence is based upon personal associations and the use of similar tactics.
The Roman Army provided homeland security and power projection to its patrons from 753 BC to the end of the Western Empire in the 5th century AD. The Army evolved over these twelve centuries, as did the culture that manned and equipped it. The Republican Army of the mid-Republic (3rd-2nd centuries BC) grew out of a militia ethos. Roman Citizens—propertied men—served, providing their own equipment, after being recruited for the duration of a war. These soldiers viewed their service not a career but a duty owed to the gods and their fellows. This was the army Rome used to conquer Italy and Carthage, becoming the dominant regional power. The Professional Army of the Empire (1st century BC to early 3rd century AD) arose out of Rome’s expanded territory which meant fighting wars farther from Rome for longer periods of time than a militia army could withstand. The men attracted to long service on the borders of the Empire were now men of less economic standing—whose loyalty to Rome was embodied in the immediate person of their General. This change in how the army was manned allowed a single man to consolidate military power and its use destroyed the Republic in favor of Empire. The Roman Army of Late Antiquity (3rd to 5th centuries AD), though still a professional fighting force, had changed to meet increasing threats from external enemies and internal civil wars. New types of units and equipment were fielded to cope with the changed strategic landscape.
When one measures a Civilization, like the Byzantine Empire, the most effective unit of measure is the number of persons over which it exerts domination or influence. Domination, or perhaps governance, is based upon the subjugation of individual sovereignty to another person or to a ruling group. This subjugation is accomplished through the use of persuasion and exploitation. Such persuasion can be peaceful and sometimes voluntarily, in the case of diplomacy or implicit trust. Often, however, domination is achieved violently and involuntarily—through the application of military force and/or economic exploitation, in the imposition of taxation or tariff. Influence is based upon the voluntary adoption of varied cultural attributes, such as religion, or through the exchange of economic value in trade goods and raw materials. The ability of a sovereign power to maintain and expand its dominance and influence is essentially sustained by internal harmony. This harmony is created when a focused, unchallenged authority is able to implement a successful concept of operations, using a successfully mobilized populace (i.e., those already dominated or influenced). This historian concurs with Ostrogorsky’s assertion that the reign of Emperor Basil II (r. 960-1025) represented the zenith of the Byzantine Empire’s dominance and influence. After the death of Basil II on 15 December 1025, it was essentially “all downhill”.
Rome used military force to wage war against foreign enemies; to maintain law and order within the boundaries of the Republic and Empire; and, to execute sophisticated engineering and administrative tasks. The “Roman Way of War” encompassed specific strategic, operational, and tactical characteristics that were refined over time. This essay will briefly describe the principle characteristics of the roman military paradigm from these three points of view.
The evolution of the organized Roman Army, from its “royal” incarnation in the late 6th century B.C. into the 2nd century Army of the Republic, was predominately reflected in its battle order (formation, organization and tactics) and its equipment. This essay will briefly describe the Roman Army of both periods, focusing on these two aspects, and examine the forces and/or events that stimulated the changes.
Between 500 and 1000 CE, the Roman Catholic Church played three significant roles in the continuity and revival of Western Civilization. These roles may be examined in light of their correspondence with aspects of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and the Church, perhaps in its role as shepherd of Christ’s flock, was able to satisfy strong psychological needs.
John Ferling. Adams vs. Jefferson: The Tumultuous Election of 1800. New York: Oxford University Press. 2004. xx + 260 pp. Plutarch once admitted that, “I must be allowed to give my particular attention to the marks and indications of men’s souls, as I endeavor to portray their lives.” In Adams vs. Jefferson: The Tumultuous Election of 1800, John Ferling continues giving his attention to the souls of early American leaders, particularly Washington, Adams and Jefferson. The 1800 United States presidential election was “a collision of three republican ideas” (p. 12) championed by Adams, Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton which delivered the first peaceful—though fraught with partisan strife—change of leadership to the new republic.
P. Cartledge: The Spartans: The World of the Warrior-Heroes of Ancient Greece, from Utopia to Crisis and Collapse. Pp 304; 1 table; 4 maps; 4 illustrations; 25 photographs. Woodstock, New York: Overlook Press, 2002. $35.00.
Paul Cartledge’s enjoyable history, The Spartans: The World of the Warrior-Heroes of Ancient Greece, from Utopia to Crisis and Collapse (2002), is his first properly general book on the Spartans, created with the “intent of mediating history to a wide public” (10). Cartledge uses a clean narrative style to relate the events, sparing the reader from mental exhaustion by inserting a series of short biographical sketches illustrative of the principle men, and the few women, who figured prominently in the cultural, political and military events that shaped events—using the sketches to deliver background necessary to a fuller and more nuanced understanding of the events.
The decline of the Roman Empire has intrigued scholars for centuries—with some trying to understand the events while others attempted to eke out lessons for their contemporaries’ edification. Regardless of intent or interpretation, in the mid-third century AD the Roman Empire in the west disappeared and, in the east, became a Greek kingdom that continued for another thousand years. The dominant interpretations of the events, arising over the past 200 years, are varied and thoughtful. Gibbon, in his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1781), attributed the events to a ‘triumph of Barbarism and Religion’. Spengler resorted to a biological analogy to suggest that the decline was a natural, foreseeable process. Toynbee asserted that the Roman Empire was the inheritor and successor of a Hellenic Society that began declining due to the Peloponnesian War. Others refused to acknowledge a decline at all and assert that a natural evolutionary process transformed the Roman Empire into the European medieval world.
In 1931-45, Japan occupied much of China and memories of Japanese atrocities persist, especially concerning the 1937-38 Nanjing Massacre. The death estimates vary between the Chinese 300,000 deaths and conservative Japanese notions rejecting the event totally. The Massacre has not figured prominently in American history, probably because it occurred four years before the USA declared war.
The dominant story, exemplified in Chang’s The Rape of Nanjing: the Forgotten Holocaust of World War II (1997), raised American public awareness by positioning the event within the milieu of WW2; and comparing the event to the Jewish Holocaust. Chang admitted she sought to inflame Americans into activism by drawing comparisons between Germany—who admitted its wartime atrocities, paid restitution, and asked forgiveness—and Japan. Here, I briefly examine the accusations made against Japanese “revisionists”; the accusers and their motives, and whether the Nanjing-as-holocaust accusation is accurate or valuable.
A land and sea battle occurred between Egypt and the “Sea Peoples” (Inhabitants of the ‘Lands of the Very Green Sea’) in 1174 BCE, early in the reign of Rameses III. Three years before, enemies, possibly from southern Asia Minor and the Aegean, had sent ships to aid the Libyans in war against Egypt. The battles of 1174 are described in texts and illustrations on the walls of Rameses' funerary temple at Medinet Habu. While intended to support political and religious ideology, the extensive sculptural reliefs and inscriptions do illuminate Egyptian warfare and may provide notionally accurate depictions of the battle. This paper will examine the sea battle and the naval tactics, weapons and organization exemplified there.
Pottery, Horses, and Bows: Technologies Critical to Ancient Near Eastern and Mediterranean Warfare. Over the course of centuries, land warfare in the Near Eastern and Mediterranean Ancient world progressed through four dominant paradigms. The earliest form of warfare was manifestly chaotic and characterized by groups of combatants fighting each other in fierce melee. Later, realizing there was safety in numbers, the massing of trained, disciplined warriors, exemplified by the Mycenaean and Macedonian phalanx, allowed the precise application of intense brute force in a bloody shoving match along a single axis, overcoming any undisciplined mob to stand against it. Eventually; the phalanx was overcome by nimble legionary forces capable of executing enveloping or flanking movements using attached cavalry to apply a mobile mass at a decisive point. Finally, the legions were defeated by swarming forces of fast, rapid-fire units conducting pulsed attacks from many directions. Each successive paradigm (chaotic melee, brute force massing, nimble maneuver, and swarming attack) supplemented rather than displaced the previous paradigm. Each transition was facilitated by a technological advance that made possible a significant improvement in one or more of the main characteristics of military capability: lethality, mobility, survivability, sustainability and C3I (command, control communications and intelligence). This essay will identify three principle technologies that allowed the paradigm shifts and briefly discuss the capabilities, synergy and advantages each brought to the battlefield.
In 421 BC, the tenth year of the Peloponnesian war, democratic Athens and oligarchic Sparta, on behalf of their respective coalitions (or empires) signed a 50-year peace treaty and, soon after, a separate defensive alliance. It is evident from subsequent events that the agreement reached by Athens and Sparta did not achieve its aims as several members of the coalitions failed to endorse the treaty, remaining belligerent towards members of the opposing coalition, and most of the treaty’s provisions went more or less unfulfilled. Only 3 years later, Spartan and Athenian troops faced each other at Mantinea in a battle that rekindled hostilities between the two principal powers.
This paper is based on research of the principal primary source, Thucydides, and several of the prominent secondary sources; performed to educate myself as to the conditions that stimulated the negotiation and signing of the Peace of Nicias, the conditions of the treaty, the implications of those conditions, the treaty’s effects upon the combatants, and the political and historical forces that led to the treaty’s failure to keep the peace. I will endeavor to briefly address the above points, presenting my assessments as to the events and their circumstances.
Miscellaneous Essays on the Roman Republic and Empire.
On Constitutional and Social Constructs of the early Roman Republic.
On Roman Warfare.
On the Collapse of the Roman Republic.
On the Contributions of Rome to Western Civilization.
Tentative Title:
Signs of Change: Conceptualizations of Justice and Mercy in 13th Century Christianity in the Letters of Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln
Tentative Thesis:
Robert Grosseteste’s conceptualization of justice and mercy, expressed in his extant letters, differed from the normative theological stance held by his 13th century contemporaries and prefigured those of 16th century Protestant Reformation theologians.
Bentley strives to avoid the word "civilization" in his 1997 "Shapes of World History in Twentieth-century Scholarship" because of its "Western elitist connotations." Instead, he labels societal groups of supra-national scope as "complex societies." Although Bentley does not explicitly tie his references to "complexity" to the multidisciplinary literature on the subject, by comparing four principal characteristics of complexity, discussed in a standard text, to the usage in his essay and its focus on civilizations (or, rather, large-scale complex societies), Bentley indicates that he possessed a valid understanding of complexity and properly applied the term in this essay.
Warfare is a martial art. It has, for millennia, been learned through intense practice, usually overseen by an older exemplar or master. The skills of Greek warriors, wrestling; using the sword, spear, bow and sling; horsemanship; attention to orders amongst chaos; and, the care and feeding of men and equipment were no exception. By the time Epaminondas of Thebes invaded Laconia, a change in the military art was underway that included increasingly sophisticated tactics, fluid modes of combat, and sophisticated new equipment whose mastery demanded full-time soldiers and intelligent, trained leaders. There is valid evidence supporting the assertions of modern historians—such as Victor Davis Hanson, Paul Cartledge, and Peter Green—that developments in military science made in the waning years of the Peloponnesian War and immediately after were learned by Philip of Macedon from his exposure to older practitioners of war. Philip, who embellished military science with his own innovations, redesigning his armies in the process; then passed a legacy of knowledge to Alexander the Great. The evidence is based upon personal associations and the use of similar tactics.
The Roman Army provided homeland security and power projection to its patrons from 753 BC to the end of the Western Empire in the 5th century AD. The Army evolved over these twelve centuries, as did the culture that manned and equipped it. The Republican Army of the mid-Republic (3rd-2nd centuries BC) grew out of a militia ethos. Roman Citizens—propertied men—served, providing their own equipment, after being recruited for the duration of a war. These soldiers viewed their service not a career but a duty owed to the gods and their fellows. This was the army Rome used to conquer Italy and Carthage, becoming the dominant regional power. The Professional Army of the Empire (1st century BC to early 3rd century AD) arose out of Rome’s expanded territory which meant fighting wars farther from Rome for longer periods of time than a militia army could withstand. The men attracted to long service on the borders of the Empire were now men of less economic standing—whose loyalty to Rome was embodied in the immediate person of their General. This change in how the army was manned allowed a single man to consolidate military power and its use destroyed the Republic in favor of Empire. The Roman Army of Late Antiquity (3rd to 5th centuries AD), though still a professional fighting force, had changed to meet increasing threats from external enemies and internal civil wars. New types of units and equipment were fielded to cope with the changed strategic landscape.
When one measures a Civilization, like the Byzantine Empire, the most effective unit of measure is the number of persons over which it exerts domination or influence. Domination, or perhaps governance, is based upon the subjugation of individual sovereignty to another person or to a ruling group. This subjugation is accomplished through the use of persuasion and exploitation. Such persuasion can be peaceful and sometimes voluntarily, in the case of diplomacy or implicit trust. Often, however, domination is achieved violently and involuntarily—through the application of military force and/or economic exploitation, in the imposition of taxation or tariff. Influence is based upon the voluntary adoption of varied cultural attributes, such as religion, or through the exchange of economic value in trade goods and raw materials. The ability of a sovereign power to maintain and expand its dominance and influence is essentially sustained by internal harmony. This harmony is created when a focused, unchallenged authority is able to implement a successful concept of operations, using a successfully mobilized populace (i.e., those already dominated or influenced). This historian concurs with Ostrogorsky’s assertion that the reign of Emperor Basil II (r. 960-1025) represented the zenith of the Byzantine Empire’s dominance and influence. After the death of Basil II on 15 December 1025, it was essentially “all downhill”.
Rome used military force to wage war against foreign enemies; to maintain law and order within the boundaries of the Republic and Empire; and, to execute sophisticated engineering and administrative tasks. The “Roman Way of War” encompassed specific strategic, operational, and tactical characteristics that were refined over time. This essay will briefly describe the principle characteristics of the roman military paradigm from these three points of view.
The evolution of the organized Roman Army, from its “royal” incarnation in the late 6th century B.C. into the 2nd century Army of the Republic, was predominately reflected in its battle order (formation, organization and tactics) and its equipment. This essay will briefly describe the Roman Army of both periods, focusing on these two aspects, and examine the forces and/or events that stimulated the changes.
Between 500 and 1000 CE, the Roman Catholic Church played three significant roles in the continuity and revival of Western Civilization. These roles may be examined in light of their correspondence with aspects of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and the Church, perhaps in its role as shepherd of Christ’s flock, was able to satisfy strong psychological needs.
John Ferling. Adams vs. Jefferson: The Tumultuous Election of 1800. New York: Oxford University Press. 2004. xx + 260 pp. Plutarch once admitted that, “I must be allowed to give my particular attention to the marks and indications of men’s souls, as I endeavor to portray their lives.” In Adams vs. Jefferson: The Tumultuous Election of 1800, John Ferling continues giving his attention to the souls of early American leaders, particularly Washington, Adams and Jefferson. The 1800 United States presidential election was “a collision of three republican ideas” (p. 12) championed by Adams, Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton which delivered the first peaceful—though fraught with partisan strife—change of leadership to the new republic.
P. Cartledge: The Spartans: The World of the Warrior-Heroes of Ancient Greece, from Utopia to Crisis and Collapse. Pp 304; 1 table; 4 maps; 4 illustrations; 25 photographs. Woodstock, New York: Overlook Press, 2002. $35.00.
Paul Cartledge’s enjoyable history, The Spartans: The World of the Warrior-Heroes of Ancient Greece, from Utopia to Crisis and Collapse (2002), is his first properly general book on the Spartans, created with the “intent of mediating history to a wide public” (10). Cartledge uses a clean narrative style to relate the events, sparing the reader from mental exhaustion by inserting a series of short biographical sketches illustrative of the principle men, and the few women, who figured prominently in the cultural, political and military events that shaped events—using the sketches to deliver background necessary to a fuller and more nuanced understanding of the events.
The decline of the Roman Empire has intrigued scholars for centuries—with some trying to understand the events while others attempted to eke out lessons for their contemporaries’ edification. Regardless of intent or interpretation, in the mid-third century AD the Roman Empire in the west disappeared and, in the east, became a Greek kingdom that continued for another thousand years. The dominant interpretations of the events, arising over the past 200 years, are varied and thoughtful. Gibbon, in his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1781), attributed the events to a ‘triumph of Barbarism and Religion’. Spengler resorted to a biological analogy to suggest that the decline was a natural, foreseeable process. Toynbee asserted that the Roman Empire was the inheritor and successor of a Hellenic Society that began declining due to the Peloponnesian War. Others refused to acknowledge a decline at all and assert that a natural evolutionary process transformed the Roman Empire into the European medieval world.
In 1931-45, Japan occupied much of China and memories of Japanese atrocities persist, especially concerning the 1937-38 Nanjing Massacre. The death estimates vary between the Chinese 300,000 deaths and conservative Japanese notions rejecting the event totally. The Massacre has not figured prominently in American history, probably because it occurred four years before the USA declared war.
The dominant story, exemplified in Chang’s The Rape of Nanjing: the Forgotten Holocaust of World War II (1997), raised American public awareness by positioning the event within the milieu of WW2; and comparing the event to the Jewish Holocaust. Chang admitted she sought to inflame Americans into activism by drawing comparisons between Germany—who admitted its wartime atrocities, paid restitution, and asked forgiveness—and Japan. Here, I briefly examine the accusations made against Japanese “revisionists”; the accusers and their motives, and whether the Nanjing-as-holocaust accusation is accurate or valuable.
A land and sea battle occurred between Egypt and the “Sea Peoples” (Inhabitants of the ‘Lands of the Very Green Sea’) in 1174 BCE, early in the reign of Rameses III. Three years before, enemies, possibly from southern Asia Minor and the Aegean, had sent ships to aid the Libyans in war against Egypt. The battles of 1174 are described in texts and illustrations on the walls of Rameses' funerary temple at Medinet Habu. While intended to support political and religious ideology, the extensive sculptural reliefs and inscriptions do illuminate Egyptian warfare and may provide notionally accurate depictions of the battle. This paper will examine the sea battle and the naval tactics, weapons and organization exemplified there.
Pottery, Horses, and Bows: Technologies Critical to Ancient Near Eastern and Mediterranean Warfare. Over the course of centuries, land warfare in the Near Eastern and Mediterranean Ancient world progressed through four dominant paradigms. The earliest form of warfare was manifestly chaotic and characterized by groups of combatants fighting each other in fierce melee. Later, realizing there was safety in numbers, the massing of trained, disciplined warriors, exemplified by the Mycenaean and Macedonian phalanx, allowed the precise application of intense brute force in a bloody shoving match along a single axis, overcoming any undisciplined mob to stand against it. Eventually; the phalanx was overcome by nimble legionary forces capable of executing enveloping or flanking movements using attached cavalry to apply a mobile mass at a decisive point. Finally, the legions were defeated by swarming forces of fast, rapid-fire units conducting pulsed attacks from many directions. Each successive paradigm (chaotic melee, brute force massing, nimble maneuver, and swarming attack) supplemented rather than displaced the previous paradigm. Each transition was facilitated by a technological advance that made possible a significant improvement in one or more of the main characteristics of military capability: lethality, mobility, survivability, sustainability and C3I (command, control communications and intelligence). This essay will identify three principle technologies that allowed the paradigm shifts and briefly discuss the capabilities, synergy and advantages each brought to the battlefield.
In 421 BC, the tenth year of the Peloponnesian war, democratic Athens and oligarchic Sparta, on behalf of their respective coalitions (or empires) signed a 50-year peace treaty and, soon after, a separate defensive alliance. It is evident from subsequent events that the agreement reached by Athens and Sparta did not achieve its aims as several members of the coalitions failed to endorse the treaty, remaining belligerent towards members of the opposing coalition, and most of the treaty’s provisions went more or less unfulfilled. Only 3 years later, Spartan and Athenian troops faced each other at Mantinea in a battle that rekindled hostilities between the two principal powers.
This paper is based on research of the principal primary source, Thucydides, and several of the prominent secondary sources; performed to educate myself as to the conditions that stimulated the negotiation and signing of the Peace of Nicias, the conditions of the treaty, the implications of those conditions, the treaty’s effects upon the combatants, and the political and historical forces that led to the treaty’s failure to keep the peace. I will endeavor to briefly address the above points, presenting my assessments as to the events and their circumstances.
Miscellaneous Essays on the Roman Republic and Empire.
On Constitutional and Social Constructs of the early Roman Republic.
On Roman Warfare.
On the Collapse of the Roman Republic.
On the Contributions of Rome to Western Civilization.