Charney, Michael W.

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MICHAEL W. CHARNEY

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GEOFFREY PARKER (ed.):
                    The Cambridge History of Warfare

SOAS Research Online

506 REVIEWSattention to Asian agency complicate Herzstein’s understanding of Luce andhis agenda?These comments, however, do not detract from the value of the book as itnow stands. This book is a special bonus for those who research the Cold Warin Asia, which is so often neglected in favour of the standoff in Europe. Thesame readers, regardless of any eschewing of anti-communist propaganda ofthe Cold War period, will find Luce a kind of hero as well, for here was a manwho clearly loved Asia (at least China) and always kept it at the centre of histhinking. The present volume is also highly recommended reading for thosewho want an inside look at one ‘theatre’ (the journalistic front) of the earlyCold War.MICHAEL W. CHARNEYGEOFFREY PARKER (ed.):The Cambridge History of Warfare.viii, 515 pp. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. £13.99.The present volume is divided into nineteen chapters with an introductionand epilogue, covering developments in warfare from Ancient Greece to theGulf Wars. Geoffrey Parker, the editor, contributed the introduction andconclusion, as well as three chapters (6, 7, and 9) and a chapter (17) co-writtenby Parker and Williamson A. Murray. Other contributors include Victor DavisHanson (chapters 1–3), Bernard S. Bachrach (4), Christopher Allmand (5),Patricia Seed (8), John A. Lynn (10 and 11), and Williamson A. Murray (12–16). The volume is rounded off with useful supplementary material including alengthy chronology and a glossary.The Cambridge History of Warfare amounts to a more than satisfactorysurvey of the origins and development of Western warfare. There is a healthybalance between specific details (provided with substantial economy) and gen-eral trends, and the reader is not dragged through meticulous descriptions ofweaponry or repetitious biographical sketches of great conquerors (althoughwith occasional emphasis on a few key actors such as Bismarck and Sheridan).Space does not allow a regurgitation of the myriad topics examined in thevolume. Nevertheless, one topic that is particularly well handled across manyof the chapters is the long, twisting evolution of fortifications which, afterminimal change for a thousand years from the late Roman period, underwentsubstantial change in response to the impact of firearms. Interestingly, fortifi-cations built by Europeans abroad were first arranged to defend againstsea attacks by other Europeans, rather than hostile advances by indigenousforces from the hinterland. Attention to new Italian fortress designs afterthe introduction of firearms and later by French engineers is presented in thecontext of necessary manpower. As fortifications became better and moreeasily defended, it increased exponentially the number of troops required tobring a siege to fruition, leading to innovations in siege technology and tacticsto reduce the commitment of troops and expense associated with such acampaign.Nevertheless, the volume’s coverage is limited mainly to the West. Devel-opments outside of Europe and North America are limited mainly to thosecases where and when Europeans brought their ships and guns to carve out507REVIEWScolonies. The native North Americans, the Aztecs, and Incas do appear inSeeds’ chapter, ‘The Conquest of the Americas’, as well as Sudanese, the Zulusand the Vietnamese, among others (the Japanese expansion of World War II isprovided, but their military was built on the Western model), in later chapters,but only as representatives of new challenges to European invaders and tech-nology. The editor acknowledges this problem in the preface, but offers threereasons for the European focus: (1) a single volume on military history couldnot possibly cover the entire world satisfactorily; (2) a brief notice of non-Western developments in the context of an overwhelming focus on the Westwould present a great distortion; and (3) regardless of competing traditions,Western warfare did win the globe in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.Hence, the ‘rise and development of this dominant tradition, together with thesecret of its success’ deserves ‘examination and analysis’ (p. vii). One wouldexpect that if this is the case the volume should have been entitled The Cam-bridge History of European Warfare or at least retained the earlier subtitle ofThe Triumph of the West for, in its present form, the title is very misleading.No-one disagrees that Western warfare is worthy of examination, but onewonders if this story needs to be told yet again (European military success is,after all, a far from neglected theme in the literature and the coverage here,especially in the second half of the volume is very familiar ground indeed) atthe expense of the rest of the world. The space devoted to the emergence ofWestern warfare in the present volume could have been substantially reducedto provide room for non-Western developments. Perhaps, a good beginningcould have been made with at least one chapter on non-Western warfare,contrary to Parker’s initial suggestion, to allow the non-Western world somespace in their own history. Regarding Parker’s third justification, the presentreviewer has reservations as to whether the success of the West can really beunderstood without a more thorough investigation of how indigenous warfareemerged and why, in numerous encounters, Western warfare failed. The abilityof the Burmese to delay the British advance in the First Anglo-Burmese War,the length of time it took to conclude the Java War, the much longer Acehwar, and a significant Dutch defeat in Bali in the mid-nineteenth century, allstress the need to understand the inadequacy of European armies in dealingwith indigenous armies at the time and how Europeans were forced to developnew tactics and strategies, sometimes drawing upon indigenous technologiesand tactics to do so. Further, as indigenous armies adapted themselves toWestern warfare, many ‘Westernized’ indigenous armies fell very quickly andeasily to European forces in the late nineteenth century. Afterwards, however,their rural (and hill) compatriots were able to hold off the Europeans for manyyears by falling back on indigenous tactics and technology.Within the limited, Western, scope of the volume, the treatment of devel-opments in warfare is scholarly and makes for a very rewarding read. Itsarrangement and fine balance between details and narrative flow make itespecially suitable for classroom instruction at the undergraduate andpostgraduate levels. Indeed, the present reviewer expects to include this assupplementary reading in his own warfare course to cover warfare beyond theconfines of Asia. The volume is thus recommended for researchers andstudents of warfare with the caveat that some supplementary reading on non-Western warfare should be undertaken if one desires a full and balancedunderstanding of the history of warfare on a global scale.MICHAEL W. CHARNEY

Review of Geoffrey Parker (ed.), 'The Cambridge History of Warfare'

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Review of Geoffrey Parker (ed.), 'The Cambridge History of Warfare'

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