Ripples of Battle: How Wars of the Past Still Determine How We Fight, How We Live, and How We Think [Hardcover]

The author selects the Battle of Okinawa, The Battle of Shiloh, and the Battle of Delium. The ripple effects are derived from the impact these battles had on the participants. To most people, these battles are minor and obscure. Okinawa shouldn't be, but was overshadowed by other events.

The key point of Okinawa (aside from the author's personal interest, a relative died there) was western culture's reaction to suicide bombings that Japanese used in the battle and the significance of the desire to fight to the last regardless of the outcome. The Japanese were fighting to extract casualties and for strategic advantage. The hope was to deter the imminent invasion of the home islands. The ripple here is the parallel of what we might do faced with Islamic extremists. In WWII, we used the A-Bomb on Japan, and Afganistan we are using Daisy Cutters.

In Shiloh, which probably the author's strongest argument, the battle impacted the pyschology of the south (The Lost Opportunity), the key focus of two generals ideas about prosecuting the war (Sherman and Grant), and how in a few moments careers are made and broken (Lew Wallace). All of these had impact far beyond the battle, the war, and the century.

Victor Hanson is an excellent writer and brings and interesting perspective to the subject. This is a very good book and well worth reading, it will make you think. (Chaos theory which an example is the fluttering of a butterfly in China impacts the weather in North America.)

I don't quite go along with some of the suppositions. Sherman's march to the sea was far from the first punitive campaign in history, though he persuades me that Shiloh caused Sherman to take up that style of war. The battle of Delium's influence must have been very subtle indeed, as the connecting thread is vanishingly faint, to my mind. Invoking a what-if influence, of Socrates possibly having been killed in that battle, is cheating; for by that standard any battle that any future famous person survived would have to count as an influential battle.

The Shiloh section is best for the account of how careers were launched and scuttled, how reputations were born, and how myths were created. His description of how the savagery of the fighting on Okinawa greased the skids for the deployment of the atom bombs is well done. The Imperial Japanese expected a bloodbath, expected Okinawa to fall, but did not expect that their show of suicidal fanaticism would prompt the Americans to one-up their brutality. And that's what stopped the war and, according to Hanson, provides precedent for Americans to escalate the modern War on Terror way beyond what the jihadists bargained for.

Hanson's storytelling powers and erudition are wonderfully entertaining, whether you agree with his points or not. The book's a bargain simply for the history lessons.