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Ripples of Battle: How Wars of the Past Still Determine How We Fight, How We Live & How We Think
The effects of war refuse to remain local: they persist through the centuries, sometimes in unlikely ways far removed from the military arena. In Ripples of Battle, the acclaimed historian Victor Davis Hanson weaves wide-ranging military and cultural history with his unparalleled gift for battle narrative as he illuminates the centrality of war in the human experience.
The Athenian defeat at Delium in 424 BC brought tactical innovations to infantry fighting; it also assured the influence of the philosophy of Socrates, who fought well in the battle. Nearly twenty-three hundred years later, the carnage at Shiloh and the death of the brilliant Southern strategist Albert Sidney Johnson inspired a sense of fateful tragedy that would endure and stymie Southern culture for decades. The Northern victory would also bolster the reputation of William Tecumseh Sherman, and inspire Lew Wallace to pen the classic Ben Hur. And, perhaps most resonant for our time, the agony of Okinawa spurred the Japanese toward state-sanctioned suicide missions, a tactic so uncompromising and subversive, it haunts our view of non-Western combatants to this day.
The Athenian defeat at Delium in 424 BC brought tactical innovations to infantry fighting; it also assured the influence of the philosophy of Socrates, who fought well in the battle. Nearly twenty-three hundred years later, the carnage at Shiloh and the death of the brilliant Southern strategist Albert Sidney Johnson inspired a sense of fateful tragedy that would endure and stymie Southern culture for decades. The Northern victory would also bolster the reputation of William Tecumseh Sherman, and inspire Lew Wallace to pen the classic Ben Hur. And, perhaps most resonant for our time, the agony of Okinawa spurred the Japanese toward state-sanctioned suicide missions, a tactic so uncompromising and subversive, it haunts our view of non-Western combatants to this day.
304 pages, Paperback
First published September 16, 2003
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About the author
Victor Davis Hanson
85 books1,194 followersVictor Davis Hanson was educated at the University of California, Santa Cruz (BA, Classics, 1975), the American School of Classical Studies (1978-79) and received his Ph.D. in Classics from Stanford University in 1980. He lives and works with his family on their forty-acre tree and vine farm near Selma, California, where he was born in 1953.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 63 reviews
May 11, 2025
Incredibly relevant to today. I think the biggest revelation to me was how important Okinawa and Shiloh were to Defining narratives in American History. Okinawa disproportionately affected how we fought Korea and Vietnam. What would those wars have looked like had that battle not taken place? Or what about the myth of the “Lost Opportunity” at Shiloh? How did the lost opportunity contribute to the more pervasive myth of the “Lost Cause”? I think this is a must read for anyone. Reads more like a social commentary through the lens of history at times, which makes it easy for people who don’t just want to read about troop movements. Highly recommend!
June 25, 2022
Interesting and entertaining book that examines the after-effects of three major battles. Victor Davis Hanson is a great writer and it is a joy to read his insights. However, in this book, his choices of battles is problematic. He picks one relatively unknown Greek battle in Delium 424 BC. He tries hard, but the only lasting effect is that Socrates fought in the battle and did not get killed. The world of Western intellect would be vastly different if Socrates did not survive.
The other battle he picks is the battle for Okinawa in World War II. It was the largest use of state-sanctioned suicide, and it failed. Mr. Hanson concludes that implies that the current use of suicide bombers is likewise doomed to failure.
I found the third battle the most interesting and I recommend this book just for the insights on Shiloh. The lessons learned by Grant and Sherman formed how the remainder of the Civil War was to be fought, and determined how the American Army still views warfare.
But what I found most interesting is the story of a Union general who was blamed for the carnage of Shiloh. A young and up-coming officer, his reputation was ruined, and he never reached the potential he seemed headed for. However, in his efforts to clear his name, he became a good writer. After the Civil War, he would write countless articles attempting to justify his actions at Shiloh. He continued to do this long after people stopped caring about the errors of a young one-star general. Having polished his writing skills, he turned to writing novels, and became the first American author to write a best selling novel to the masses of Americans. His novel held the record for selling the most books in the US until 'Gone With the Wind'. His novel was presented on stage in all major American cities, and held the record for the most performances of any American play for over 30 years. It was one of the first novels to be filmed, and the 1959 adaptation set records for tickets sold, money generated, and number of Academy Awards won. While this man is not as well known today as he was fifty years ago, when he is remembered, he is remembered as an author, and not for anything that happened at Shiloh.
The other battle he picks is the battle for Okinawa in World War II. It was the largest use of state-sanctioned suicide, and it failed. Mr. Hanson concludes that implies that the current use of suicide bombers is likewise doomed to failure.
I found the third battle the most interesting and I recommend this book just for the insights on Shiloh. The lessons learned by Grant and Sherman formed how the remainder of the Civil War was to be fought, and determined how the American Army still views warfare.
But what I found most interesting is the story of a Union general who was blamed for the carnage of Shiloh. A young and up-coming officer, his reputation was ruined, and he never reached the potential he seemed headed for. However, in his efforts to clear his name, he became a good writer. After the Civil War, he would write countless articles attempting to justify his actions at Shiloh. He continued to do this long after people stopped caring about the errors of a young one-star general. Having polished his writing skills, he turned to writing novels, and became the first American author to write a best selling novel to the masses of Americans. His novel held the record for selling the most books in the US until 'Gone With the Wind'. His novel was presented on stage in all major American cities, and held the record for the most performances of any American play for over 30 years. It was one of the first novels to be filmed, and the 1959 adaptation set records for tickets sold, money generated, and number of Academy Awards won. While this man is not as well known today as he was fifty years ago, when he is remembered, he is remembered as an author, and not for anything that happened at Shiloh.
August 9, 2022
Victor Davis Hanson has been one of my favorite opinion people on news shows for several years. This is the first book of his that I’ve read. (I did take a course from Hillsdale College that he taught on WWII, which I’d highly recommend.)
The premise of the book is that battles/warfare creates ripples that travel and effect society for many years. Hanson uses three battles to make his case. The battles are Okinawa (WWII), Shiloh (American Civil War), and Delium (a battle in Greece four centuries before Christ).
The first two were terribly interesting and I followed along well. The kamikaze/suicide attackers, the tactics of both American and Japanese generals in the actual land battle, and the use of the atomic bomb were discussed. Good stuff.
Shiloh was more familiar to me and it is a battle field I spent a day at with a friend as a guide. The launch of Sherman as a great military leader is laid out. The death of Gen. Johnstone at a key moment certainly changed the battle. Wallace’s strange story of possible delay was unfamiliar to me but the fact that Ben-Hur was written by him was something I did know. It was a blockbuster and was birthed in a fashion due to the thought that he delayed that day in the battle.
The last third of the book was more difficult for me to follow. The mass of Greek names was mostly lost on me. The places were foreign. (Pardon the pun.) These are more my fault than his but it made that part of the book a little less pleasurable. The phalanx was explained Along with why Socrates living was a big deal.
I would suggest this to those with an interest in war history.
The premise of the book is that battles/warfare creates ripples that travel and effect society for many years. Hanson uses three battles to make his case. The battles are Okinawa (WWII), Shiloh (American Civil War), and Delium (a battle in Greece four centuries before Christ).
The first two were terribly interesting and I followed along well. The kamikaze/suicide attackers, the tactics of both American and Japanese generals in the actual land battle, and the use of the atomic bomb were discussed. Good stuff.
Shiloh was more familiar to me and it is a battle field I spent a day at with a friend as a guide. The launch of Sherman as a great military leader is laid out. The death of Gen. Johnstone at a key moment certainly changed the battle. Wallace’s strange story of possible delay was unfamiliar to me but the fact that Ben-Hur was written by him was something I did know. It was a blockbuster and was birthed in a fashion due to the thought that he delayed that day in the battle.
The last third of the book was more difficult for me to follow. The mass of Greek names was mostly lost on me. The places were foreign. (Pardon the pun.) These are more my fault than his but it made that part of the book a little less pleasurable. The phalanx was explained Along with why Socrates living was a big deal.
I would suggest this to those with an interest in war history.
September 14, 2016
This book started off as a distinct pleasure. The introduction, discussing the Hanson family’s personal loss at the battle of Okinawa, is both amazing and heartbreaking; the author is able to conclude with what I consider the book’s main idea: “[T]here will be some fundamental and important consequences beyond other more normal occurrences, given the unnatural idea of men trying to kill each other in a few hours in a relatively confined space. Battles really are the wildfires of history, out of which the survivors float like embers and then land to burn far beyond the original conflagration.” To state it differently—and not as well—there are far-reaching aftershocks to these violent encounters on the battlefield, and they are worthy of discussion. A few years ago, I read Maxwell Taylor Kennedy’s superb book on the USS Bunker Hill in the aftermath of a Kamikaze attack, where he compared this situation to the suicide bombers encountered in Iraq; I was pleased to see Hanson dig deeper into this phenomenon and the way Imperial Japan facilitated it. He also provides one of the best arguments I’ve seen in favor of President Truman’s decision to drop the atomic bomb and shorten the war. It is a bit ominous that he spills some ink on Churchill here, but I saw no mention of the US President’s role in these events (as majestic as the Prime Minister was, he did not have the authority to launch the Enola Gay). Like the first case study, the remaining two are about maneuver and its influence on victory in battle. In the chapters on Shiloh, Hanson makes a fine argument that Sherman was the right man at the right place and time to ensure the Civil War’s outcome, and that teaming him up with Grant guaranteed it would happen as fast as possible. The discussion of other personalities at Shiloh and their far-reaching influence in its wake—i.e., Generals Johnston, Forrest, and Wallace—do much to support the aforementioned thesis. The Delium section aptly reveals the author’s mastery of and education in classical history, and his relation of this battle to Greek philosophy, military tactics, and the Western world as we know it is convincing. I had actually scrawled in the margins that with the passage of time, someone should bring this scholarly model to evaluating the effects of Fallujah or Anaconda, perhaps with better maps and interviews of the combatants as older, more seasoned, and reflective men. In his epilogue, the author writes that an individual battle’s legacy is affected by factors like “[t]actics, numbers, the dead, location, timing, political aftershocks, and luminaries” involved in the fight, and it’s imperative that “veterans, eyewitnesses, and historians” record the events for posterity. As the chapter moved on, I was writing the names of other poignant works in the margins like “Clash of Civilizations” and “The Lexus and the Olive Tree” and I was both lamenting the fact that the book was almost finished and excited about how Hanson would tie the sack shut on a fine work. It his here, however, that he disappoints. I personally remember standing in the heat and dust outside the little PX at Bagram Airbase in 2002 and most of our NATO nations were represented in the queue (as well as South Koreans, Australians, and New Zealanders), so I’m not sure which European allies he saw “voicing anger at America in the months after” the 9/11 attacks. I can personally vouch for nations like Germany, Turkey, and Spain putting boots on the ground when Article Five was declared, and maybe “Europeans loudly pronounced a new anti-Americanism,” but I didn’t hear that where it mattered in Afghanistan. His further assertion that Vietnam “shamed Americans into thinking that all conflicts were bad. Relativism sometimes convinced them that they were not that much different from their enemies. Conflict resolution advised that there was rarely such a thing as a moral armed struggle of good against evil—to be scoffed at as ‘Manichaean’…” I think we stand on the shoulders of giants, but if you’re telling me that the heroes and leaders at places like Chosin Reservoir, Khe Sanh, and Torah Borah put on blinders and charged into combat against an enemy with greater moral fiber than our resolute but situationally-aware American forefathers, I don’t think we are going to agree. To go further, any military leader who is not consistently evaluating and adapting to circumstances—a quality Hanson himself describes in his examination of Sherman—is dangerous to himself and his subordinates. I admire Lincoln as much as any well-read American, but I also acknowledge that he had doubts and made several mid-course corrections in his endeavor to preserve the United States of America. The back-handed swipes at President Clinton [like Truman, Hanson has decided to avoid mentioning him by name], his implication that every veteran is a national security expert, and his bizarre segue into scorn for modern art reveal more than a little of the Manichaeanism he mentioned earlier. To summarize, “Ripples of Battle” took a fine series of case studies, each of which “carry historical weight far out of proportion to their numbers, and so create waves where there should be only tiny ripples.” His examination is nuanced, complex, and highly readable. Unfortunately, in the last 10 pages of the book, Hanson decides to pass judgment (the book was published in 2003) on events we haven’t had time to really assess adequately with the brain instead of the heart, and this assessment brings to mind men who consistently shriek “Appeasement!” and “Traitor!” into the faces of people who ask about checks and balances before applying military force to a problem. This premature assessment of the Global War on Terror is akin to trying to change the tire on a car that is still in motion, a practice likely to bring both danger and failure, and certainly different than assessing events that happened before 1945. To use another metaphor, I left this book feeling like I had engaged in an intelligent and interesting conversation with a brilliant and engaging scholar; when it was time to say goodbye, I would have liked to shake hands and say I looked forward to future engagements. I feel as if I was offered a palm streaked with something sticky and putrid. Needless to say, I will not be purchasing future conversations with Victor Davis Hanson.
August 28, 2018
This book has a deeply poignant feel to it that makes it a very worthwhile book and also one that helps us to understand the complications of battle. In this roughly 250 page book, moderately overrated military historian and classicist Victor Davis Hanson examines some battles that he thinks of as obscure--most of them are not--and then looks thoughtfully at some of the ripples of those battles that decided aspects of great importance. As might be expected, the author mixes elements that match his own classical background, popular history, contemporary geopolitics, and a deeply poignant personal story. If you are familiar with Hanson's approach [1], none of this ought to be a surprise, but even if this book is not groundbreaking in its approach, it is at least deeply interesting and worthwhile and poignant, all things that make for a worthwhile read. And if you know what you are getting into with the author's tendency to overgeneralize at times, this is certainly one of the better books in his body of work to see his approach to military history.
This book consists of three chapters, each of them focusing on a battle whose ripples the author wishes to explore in some depth. After a list of maps and a poignant introduction about the death of the author's uncle in World War II and his own efforts to research his namesake, the author appropriately begins the book by talking about the Battle of Okinawa (1). He examines the planning and execution of the battle, the suicide plans of the Japanese and the way those plans were foiled by the lack of restraint of the United States that led ultimately to the dropping of the atomic bomb and to a lesson that other foes should have heeded that the general restraint of the United States in terms of its military is removed when one attempts terrorism. After that the author examines some of the ghosts of Shiloh, looking at the way the battle affected the reputations of notable leaders like Sherman, led to a myth of the lost opportunity with the death of Gen. Albert Sydney Johnson, ruined the reputation and inspired the thirst for justice and revenge of Lew Wallace, and encouraged Gen. Forrest to fight bravely but as an outsider to the Confederate establishment, even into Reconstruction. The third chapter looks at the culture that resulted from Delium, including a topical play by Euripides, the tragedy of Thespae's destruction, the faces of Delium, the counterfactual importance of Socrates' survival and bravery, Thebes' use of plunder for artistic purposes, and the tactical development of Thebe's military that would have deep repercussions for Hellenistic warfare. The book ends with a look at September 11 and its likely ripples that will continue for some time.
One of the aspects of this book that makes it so worthwhile is the fact that the author focuses on aspects of life and death, and shows a real interest in the ordinary people whose lives were affected by war. He comments on the reason why it remains important for war to be studied--and at times practiced--by societies that would rather dwell at peace with others. The author demonstrates that the seeming chance effects of warfare can have dramatic effects, cutting off people from having children and passing on a family line, destroying civilizations by crippling their population base, showing the way that tactics and technologies can be used to kill and destroy, and demonstrating the way that the horrors of war can lead to dramatic changes in the lives of those who survive, killing some, shrouding others in immortal glory, and ruining the reputations of others, even in ways that are somewhat unjust. Sometimes battles are deeply unfortunate in their outcomes, even when the outcomes are kind for some of the people involved specifically.
[1] See, for example:
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2018...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2014...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2011...
This book consists of three chapters, each of them focusing on a battle whose ripples the author wishes to explore in some depth. After a list of maps and a poignant introduction about the death of the author's uncle in World War II and his own efforts to research his namesake, the author appropriately begins the book by talking about the Battle of Okinawa (1). He examines the planning and execution of the battle, the suicide plans of the Japanese and the way those plans were foiled by the lack of restraint of the United States that led ultimately to the dropping of the atomic bomb and to a lesson that other foes should have heeded that the general restraint of the United States in terms of its military is removed when one attempts terrorism. After that the author examines some of the ghosts of Shiloh, looking at the way the battle affected the reputations of notable leaders like Sherman, led to a myth of the lost opportunity with the death of Gen. Albert Sydney Johnson, ruined the reputation and inspired the thirst for justice and revenge of Lew Wallace, and encouraged Gen. Forrest to fight bravely but as an outsider to the Confederate establishment, even into Reconstruction. The third chapter looks at the culture that resulted from Delium, including a topical play by Euripides, the tragedy of Thespae's destruction, the faces of Delium, the counterfactual importance of Socrates' survival and bravery, Thebes' use of plunder for artistic purposes, and the tactical development of Thebe's military that would have deep repercussions for Hellenistic warfare. The book ends with a look at September 11 and its likely ripples that will continue for some time.
One of the aspects of this book that makes it so worthwhile is the fact that the author focuses on aspects of life and death, and shows a real interest in the ordinary people whose lives were affected by war. He comments on the reason why it remains important for war to be studied--and at times practiced--by societies that would rather dwell at peace with others. The author demonstrates that the seeming chance effects of warfare can have dramatic effects, cutting off people from having children and passing on a family line, destroying civilizations by crippling their population base, showing the way that tactics and technologies can be used to kill and destroy, and demonstrating the way that the horrors of war can lead to dramatic changes in the lives of those who survive, killing some, shrouding others in immortal glory, and ruining the reputations of others, even in ways that are somewhat unjust. Sometimes battles are deeply unfortunate in their outcomes, even when the outcomes are kind for some of the people involved specifically.
[1] See, for example:
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2018...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2014...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2011...
July 4, 2014
Excellent and Quite Enjoyable
We all understand that wars can profoundly change the world. History is full of wars that brought giant transformations, such as Alexander's conquest of Persia (and just about everything else he saw) and the spread of Hellenistic culture, the Spanish conquistadors in Mexico and Peru and the Cold War stand off that shaped the world after World War II. If you have ever heard the phrase "In a post-9/11 world..." that tells you that the world has been changed by the War on Terror.
The simple idea behind Ripples of Battle is that it's not just wars but oftentimes single battles that change things. And, sometimes, it's not the battle that everyone knows, but a lesser-known battle that causes the most change. He uses the familiar image of a rock tossed into a lake with the outgoing ripples from the point of impact being the change. And, he does a pretty thorough job of showing that these ripples can go on and on for a very long time.
Hanson uses three battles in his formal discussion: Okinawa in World War II (April 1-July 2, 1945, Shiloh in the American Civil War (April 6-7, 1862) and Delium in the Peloponnesian War (November, 424 B.C.). He also draws similar conclusions about the 9/11 attacks in his introduction and epilogue.
Okinawa
He begins with Okinawa in World War II. In many ways this is personal because his father's cousin and undoubtedly the author's namesake, Victor Hanson, was killed in battle at Okinawa. This was the first battle on an island that was truly considered to be Japanese and the Americans needed it to continue their aerial assault on the Japanese main islands. The 110,000 Japanese soldiers on the island were dug in and determined to make the conquest of the island so difficult that the Americans would be convinced that an invasion of the rest of Japan would be impossible.
The Americans came with an initial invasion force bigger than that used in Normandy the year before with 1,600 ships and 500,000 American fighting men and the potential use of up to 12,000 combat aircraft. These Americans fought against kamikaze aircraft attacks (a harbinger of the suicide bomber and the 9/11 attacks) and against foot soldiers that were ordered to fight to the death, no matter how terrible the odds. The Americans responded with the flamethrower (literally burning out Japanese defensive positions) and by bombing kamikaze airbases before they could even get the planes in the air. Cold and calculating military measures that were effective and preserved American lives.
And, in the end, they came to the conclusion that the Japanese wanted them to reach - the Japanese main islands could not be conquered by traditional means. So, they decided to...
Read more at: http://dwdsreviews.blogspot.com/2014/...
We all understand that wars can profoundly change the world. History is full of wars that brought giant transformations, such as Alexander's conquest of Persia (and just about everything else he saw) and the spread of Hellenistic culture, the Spanish conquistadors in Mexico and Peru and the Cold War stand off that shaped the world after World War II. If you have ever heard the phrase "In a post-9/11 world..." that tells you that the world has been changed by the War on Terror.
The simple idea behind Ripples of Battle is that it's not just wars but oftentimes single battles that change things. And, sometimes, it's not the battle that everyone knows, but a lesser-known battle that causes the most change. He uses the familiar image of a rock tossed into a lake with the outgoing ripples from the point of impact being the change. And, he does a pretty thorough job of showing that these ripples can go on and on for a very long time.
Hanson uses three battles in his formal discussion: Okinawa in World War II (April 1-July 2, 1945, Shiloh in the American Civil War (April 6-7, 1862) and Delium in the Peloponnesian War (November, 424 B.C.). He also draws similar conclusions about the 9/11 attacks in his introduction and epilogue.
Okinawa
He begins with Okinawa in World War II. In many ways this is personal because his father's cousin and undoubtedly the author's namesake, Victor Hanson, was killed in battle at Okinawa. This was the first battle on an island that was truly considered to be Japanese and the Americans needed it to continue their aerial assault on the Japanese main islands. The 110,000 Japanese soldiers on the island were dug in and determined to make the conquest of the island so difficult that the Americans would be convinced that an invasion of the rest of Japan would be impossible.
The Americans came with an initial invasion force bigger than that used in Normandy the year before with 1,600 ships and 500,000 American fighting men and the potential use of up to 12,000 combat aircraft. These Americans fought against kamikaze aircraft attacks (a harbinger of the suicide bomber and the 9/11 attacks) and against foot soldiers that were ordered to fight to the death, no matter how terrible the odds. The Americans responded with the flamethrower (literally burning out Japanese defensive positions) and by bombing kamikaze airbases before they could even get the planes in the air. Cold and calculating military measures that were effective and preserved American lives.
And, in the end, they came to the conclusion that the Japanese wanted them to reach - the Japanese main islands could not be conquered by traditional means. So, they decided to...
Read more at: http://dwdsreviews.blogspot.com/2014/...
February 2, 2017
I was surprised at how interesting of a read this book was. Hanson weaves a number of fascinating stories and characters together in ways that illustrate ideas about war and culture that we have today. Some ideas and experiences of today were fought over in 424 BC at Delium, with a hoplite infantryman, Socrates, fighting in the ranks of the phalanx. How many of you know what part the author of Ben Hur had to play at the battle of Shiloh? - and how that part in the battle affected the story of Ben Hur? Hanson will tell you. He also makes a passionate argument that no discussion of suicide bombers, or an appropriate Western response towards them, can ever be intellectually adequate without a knowledge of the WWII battle of Okinawa. I'm convinced.
All in all, an informative book of history written by a very good story-teller.
All in all, an informative book of history written by a very good story-teller.
December 4, 2012
Decent overall and a quick read. The introduction and sections on Okinawa and particularly Shiloh are quite good. The third section, on Delium, is clearly the weakest and most speculative. Hanson mostly doesn't indulge in the great weakness of counterfactuals ("EVERYTHING would have been TOTALLY different if...!") until he gets talking about Socrates. He spends quite a few pages speculating about the form of post-Delium-Socrates-less Western philosophy and it just felt like a total waste of my time. I'd like to have given this three stars, but he just totally goes off the rails in the epilogue, launching a bit of a diatribe about modern America and 9/11 that wasn't built towards or even really supported by the rest of the text.
February 10, 2017
Three not unknown, but certainly not well-known battles: Okinawa 1944, Shiloh 1862 and Delium 424 BC... The author takes us through the far-reaching effects from various aspects of these battles. I stood amazed at the connections made across, decades, centuries and millenia from each of these battles that effected political decision making and strategy, popular culture, western philosophy, military tactics, and more.
Although it helped reading this book with a moderate understanding of military and world history, the author lays out his case for each battle and the associated connections for all readers from the neophyte to the old hand.
Although it helped reading this book with a moderate understanding of military and world history, the author lays out his case for each battle and the associated connections for all readers from the neophyte to the old hand.
June 14, 2019
Hanson is an expert in historic war engagements . I you enjoy that , this is for you .
July 13, 2020
There's a personal touch to this book that Hanson doesn't usually offer. As with all his books, there's always a fascinating theme. I'd love to have had a few more examples on those "ripples."
April 9, 2022
Battles really are the wildfires of history, out of which the survivors float like embers and then land to burn far beyond the original conflagration.
Hanson takes three battles—each of them lesser known battles in the greater war that they were part of—and tries to convince us that without them the world would be a far different place. He takes them in reverse chronological order. The first is Okinawa, the second Shiloh, and the third Delium in Greece.
The introduction is one of the best parts of the book. He’s mentioned his uncle Vincent in other books, but here he starts the book with a moving description of Victor’s death at Okinawa, and how he came to learn of it from surviving members of Victor’s old company.
I grant that the death of a twenty-three-year-old farm boy I never met from Kingsburg, California, pales besides two hundred thousand combined Japanese soldiers and Okinawa civilians incinerated, blown apart, and slowly starved to death that summer. Yes, I accept all that, but I also know of the wide ripples of one man’s death, and as I look at his ring they have not ended—at least not quite yet.
His arguments for both Okinawa and Shiloh as world-changing battles are very strong. Without the battle of Okinawa, if we had either bypassed the island on the way to Japan or if it had not been so bloody, we very likely would not have used the atomic bomb to end the war, but rather conventional fighting. Before Okinawa, there were factions in the military in favor of using the bomb, factions that didn’t believe it would work, and factions that did not want to use it. Okinawa convinced the latter faction that the bomb was necessary to end the war without annihilating the entire population of Japan and similar numbers of American soldiers.
One of the amazing statistics of Okinawa is that only 7,000 of the 110,000 Japanese combatants were captured. The rest were killed or killed themselves. Hanson describes how deeply the ethos that produced the kamikaze pilot went in both Japanese soldiers and the general population, and how bloody this made the battles—and how this changed the way Americans fought the war, up to and including the use of nuclear weapons.
The terror of suicide brought out the greater terror of the Western way of war. Americans not merely devised immediate countermeasures to the kamikazes and suicide banzai charges—everything from picket destroyers to flame-shooing tanks—but also left the island with a changed mentality about the nature of war itself: from now on fanaticism of the human will would be repaid in kind with the fanaticism of industrial and technological power. Okinawa taught the world that the chief horror of war is not the random use of suicide bombers, but the response that they incur from Western powers whose self-imposed restraint upon their ingenuity for killing usually rests only with their own sense of moral reluctance—a brake that suicidal attack seems to strip away entirely.
I usually read a fiction book concurrently with a nonfiction book, and along with this I read The First Lensman. In it there was an alien race absolutely convinced by their rulers that Earth was bent on their destruction and “were made to believe that our only hope of continued existence was to meet you and destroy you in space; for if you were allowed to reach Petrine every man, woman, and child on the planet would either be killed outright or tortured to death.”
It’s very likely that Smith was inspired by how successfully the military rulers of Japan convinced the Japanese populations that it was better to commit suicide than be captured.
In each of the three examples, Hanson argues convincingly that the fighting produced influential works of art. Okinawa, for example, produced some of the most influential novels and imagery of the Second World War. He singles out William Manchester’s Goodbye, Darkness and E. B. Sledge’s With the Old Breed as examples.
The battle at Shiloh is even more convincing as a revolutionary event. First, General Sherman went into Shiloh with little standing among the brass or the Lincoln administration. But his coolness under intense fire, and his ability to defend against a much larger force long enough for reinforcements to arrive, made his career, and directly created the relationship between Sherman and Grant that allowed Sherman to make his war-ending march to the sea right through Confederate territory. He would never have received permission for that risky tactic without Shiloh.
Sherman, however, left the battlefield convinced that there had to be a better way for a modern army to defeat its adversary than twenty thousand combined casualties in the space of forty-eight hours.
Some of Hanson’s ripples are the simple ones, battles creating heroes who go on to use their stature, as Sherman did to defend Grant during and after the war. Without Sherman’s new reputation after Shiloh, the north could not have won the war as quickly. Lincoln would probably have been a one-term president. Sherman’s recognition that the modern way of war meant attacking the government and elites waging the war rather than the people conscripted to fight allowed the north to win more battles faster, which almost certainly saved Lincoln’s re-election.
And Shiloh didn’t just make reputations on the Union side, but also on the Confederate side. Without Nathan Bedford Forrest’s reputation from Shiloh, the Klan likely would have remained a local, ephemeral organization and not the armed wing of the Democratic Party that it became both in its original form and its later resurgence in the twentieth century. The campaign to keep blacks from voting would have been far less organized and more easily overcome.
Even a lost reputation makes a difference: on the arts side, he makes the argument that General Lew Wallace’s “failure” at Shiloh led directly to his novel Ben-Hur, and from it the modern popular author and multi-pronged publishing spectacular.
The weakest of Hanson’s arguments is that of Delium. People generally will know that Okinawa was a battle, and Shiloh, but say Delium and people are more likely to think it’s one of Neil Gaiman’s Endless than a pivotal battle—and in fact, Hanson argues that the battle itself was not particularly pivotal.
In one sense, the battle at Delium is an argument for the influence of individuals in world history. Had it not been for one man, Pagondas, the Theban army would have gone home after routing the Athenian army, instead of pursuing them to reduce the chance of attacks in the future.
Pagondas’s ardor and military ingenuity are good reminders that history is not merely the faceless story of larger economic and social currents at work that alone determine man’s fate. Gifted individuals do count and by their very brazenness prove we are not pawns of forces beyond our control. In some sense the entire battle of Delium was fought because of a single old man’s anger—and one because of his tactical acumen.
Hanson also argues that much of modern tactics comes from Delium, but it seems to have been a general feature growing out of Theban military philosophy than a one-time innovation by Pagondas. Would Philip of Macedon and then Alexander the Great have not expanded such tactics in their own campaigns of world conquest had it not been for Delium? The argument is not nearly as convincing as the others in this book.
But the larger ripple of Delium, for Hanson, is that Socrates survived the battle. Without Socrates, Western philosophy would have been markedly different. The problem is that this is not necessarily an argument that the battle changed the world: unlike the ripples of the other two battles, Socrates would also have survived the battle if there had been no battle.
There is only a passing reference that the battle may have significantly influenced Socrates’s philosophy, and thus the philosophy of the Western world; and this reference is not expanded.
That aside, the story of how Delium’s aftereffects rippled through Athenian culture, while not convincingly world-changing, is still fascinating. And the other two examples more than shore up his argument that “rarely do we appreciate battles as human phenomena or the cumulative effects—the ripples—that change communities for years, or centuries even, well after the day’s killing is over.”
…we should remember that lesson both when we go to war and try to make sense of the peace that follows.
March 9, 2021
Victor Davis Hanson is one of the most dedicated and detail-oriented historians of our era, and in reading this book, you can tell just how much he respects and values history. The book explores 3 events in history: The battles of Okinawa, Shiloh, and Delium, and relates how these events created ripple effects that continue through this day. These events are lesser-known than other battles in World War II, the Civil War, and the Peloponnesian War, and Hanson shows us that rather than being "less" important, they are more important. We probably won't learn about them in history class in school, so it's important for us as Americans to educate ourselves on the events that have created the world we now live in, for better or for worse.
Hanson has done magnificent and exhaustive research to put this book together, and he weaves a narrative that is fascinating and relatable. Who knew that the legendary film Ben-Hur only exists because its author, Lew Wallace, managed to piss off Ulysses S. Grant at Shiloh and had his reputation soured by those above him? This book will grip you and make you think that each and every one of us wakes up in the morning because of billions of trillions of chance events throughout human history. Every moment spawns reactions and effects that are felt from here until the end of time. If Albert Sidney Johnston hadn't been killed by a freak bullet to the leg at Shiloh, the South may have won the Civil War. What might have happened if Socrates died in the battle of Delium? This book will make you think, and might even make you re-evaluate your own existence. But that's what the best history books should do, and Hanson is indeed one of the best historians of our day.
Hanson has done magnificent and exhaustive research to put this book together, and he weaves a narrative that is fascinating and relatable. Who knew that the legendary film Ben-Hur only exists because its author, Lew Wallace, managed to piss off Ulysses S. Grant at Shiloh and had his reputation soured by those above him? This book will grip you and make you think that each and every one of us wakes up in the morning because of billions of trillions of chance events throughout human history. Every moment spawns reactions and effects that are felt from here until the end of time. If Albert Sidney Johnston hadn't been killed by a freak bullet to the leg at Shiloh, the South may have won the Civil War. What might have happened if Socrates died in the battle of Delium? This book will make you think, and might even make you re-evaluate your own existence. But that's what the best history books should do, and Hanson is indeed one of the best historians of our day.
February 25, 2024
"Battles really are the wildfires of history, out of which the survivors float like embers and then land to burn far beyond the original conflagration." - Victor Davis Hanson, Ripples of Battle
Dr. Hanson's content in all its forms has been a bastion of sanity for me lately. I went to the library looking for a different book of his and instead found Ripples of Battle. VDH has such a mastery of the events and far-reaching consequences of Okinawa, Shiloh, and Delium that after one read of his coverage of these battles, I'm tempted to think myself capable of teaching on them; at least to someone who knew as little about them as I did when I began the book.
Beginning with a battle in 1945 that impacted his own life very personally and ending with an event that was still impacting every American in 2003 when the book was published, Dr. Hanson demonstrates his thesis in a dozen interesting ways across not just centuries but millennia - that battle accelerates, destroys, and changes people and ideas like nothing else can.
Dr. Hanson's content in all its forms has been a bastion of sanity for me lately. I went to the library looking for a different book of his and instead found Ripples of Battle. VDH has such a mastery of the events and far-reaching consequences of Okinawa, Shiloh, and Delium that after one read of his coverage of these battles, I'm tempted to think myself capable of teaching on them; at least to someone who knew as little about them as I did when I began the book.
Beginning with a battle in 1945 that impacted his own life very personally and ending with an event that was still impacting every American in 2003 when the book was published, Dr. Hanson demonstrates his thesis in a dozen interesting ways across not just centuries but millennia - that battle accelerates, destroys, and changes people and ideas like nothing else can.
August 9, 2018
Hanson shows how three major battles, Okinawa, Shiloh, & Delium (Greece in 424 BC) had historical impact well beyond the times they were fought and the outcomes they brought. He explains the tactics involved and some of the major personalities, mostly generals, of each battle and how they helped shape the future of war and society. I found each of the three battles interesting from a historical perspective in and of themselves as well as Hanson's explanations of their impact. He spends a little too much time hypothesizing about what might have happened had the people and outcomes been different. Towards the end of the book he ties some of the books teachings to the September 11, 2001 attack on the USA and the subsequent military response or war on terror.
Very thought provoking.
Very thought provoking.
January 27, 2021
War... HOOOO ...good God y’all
What is it good for?
A lot of things as it turns out! Especially when Diplomacy, economic, and informational instruments of power fail to project your nation’s needs and desires upon other states, or to defend yourself or your tribe against said projections.
This book Explores ways to overcome a superior military through lessons of battles previously fought. Okinawa AKA “if we can’t beat them let’s blow ourselves up while near them,” Shiloh aka “I’d really rather not do this again, so I’ll just burn your farm down instead,” and Delium aka “an unexamined war is not worth fighting”
VDH is a BA. History is boring, which is why only nerds read it. Buy this book for your nerd friends.
What is it good for?
A lot of things as it turns out! Especially when Diplomacy, economic, and informational instruments of power fail to project your nation’s needs and desires upon other states, or to defend yourself or your tribe against said projections.
This book Explores ways to overcome a superior military through lessons of battles previously fought. Okinawa AKA “if we can’t beat them let’s blow ourselves up while near them,” Shiloh aka “I’d really rather not do this again, so I’ll just burn your farm down instead,” and Delium aka “an unexamined war is not worth fighting”
VDH is a BA. History is boring, which is why only nerds read it. Buy this book for your nerd friends.
January 23, 2019
Four and a half stars. Hanson, one of the great military analysts and writers of our time, has produced a gem here. He describes and analyzes three epic battles of different ages (Okinawa, Shiloh, and Delium) and then shows in detail how each of them influenced the future of the participants, and of warfare techniques and strategies, in ways not fully understood by other historians and analysts. I would have rated this book a solid five starts, but I felt that there was a little too much redundancy. That said, Hanson's analysis and insights are brilliant and I highly recommend the book to anyone interested in war and its impact on civilization.
November 28, 2019
This book at three battles and the ripples the battles’ outcomes had on human history. This includes changed in perception, the fate of individuals that had major impacts on history, including the preservation of Western philosophy, the concept of modern U. S. Strategic targeting, and suicide bombers’ impact on American concepts of fighting in Asia.
This is a must read book for those interested in better understanding of the long term impact of history.
This is a must read book for those interested in better understanding of the long term impact of history.
June 14, 2024
Truly fascinating look at three battles that have shaped our culture. I genuinely enjoyed reading this in the first half and started to loose interest by the end. I think some of that could just be my own personal disinterest in greek culture.
Overall, I love hearing how seemingly small aspects of history have the power to overall impact bigger parts of history and society. Truly an example of the butterfly effect.
Overall, I love hearing how seemingly small aspects of history have the power to overall impact bigger parts of history and society. Truly an example of the butterfly effect.
September 1, 2020
Battles in Time
Dr Hanson again demonstrates his masterful grasp of military history. The Ripples of Battle are a masterpiece of comparative events in history. I continue to salute VDH and strongly recommend his work to those wishing to see history made interesting with unique writing skills.
Dr Hanson again demonstrates his masterful grasp of military history. The Ripples of Battle are a masterpiece of comparative events in history. I continue to salute VDH and strongly recommend his work to those wishing to see history made interesting with unique writing skills.
January 10, 2021
Well Worth the Time and Effort
Excellent and detailed recounting of the battle for Okinawa. The description of the effects of the death of an uncle highlights the personal impacts of a combatant's death on family and comrades. I have no background to evaluate VDH's presentation on either Shiloh or Delium. His epilogue is worthy of reading on its own.
Excellent and detailed recounting of the battle for Okinawa. The description of the effects of the death of an uncle highlights the personal impacts of a combatant's death on family and comrades. I have no background to evaluate VDH's presentation on either Shiloh or Delium. His epilogue is worthy of reading on its own.
September 10, 2022
An interesting book - the first two parts about Okinawa and Shiloh definitely were riveting. I was unable to follow the Greek part three, because it seemed just so far removed from the modern day. Giving it three stars because it was interesting, but lacked a 'point' for me to take away. But very well written and well-researched otherwise, as one would expect from VDH.
January 26, 2026
Overall, this book is eye-opening to how battles impact all areas of discourse. Philosophy, civics, politics, geography, etc, both in a contemporary and historical context. Some portions are repetitive at times, but Victor Davis Hanson does a great job of telling the stories of the battles and their effects without being monotonous.
February 4, 2018
"The ripples of battle are...immune from and care little for what people write and read...They simply wash up on us all as we speak and in ways that cannot fully be known until centuries after we are gone."
March 25, 2022
Interesting but limited. Too much conjecture on what might have been instead of what actually came to pass. Could be an interesting series of books, but too narrow (3 battles) to be much more than an intriguing concept.
October 21, 2018
A really interesting book. The chapters on Shiloh and Delium were particularly good. VDH really digs deep into the aftereffects of these battles.
March 11, 2019
Enlightening
Nearly every paragraph effects ones thinking in profound ways. I wish everyone in the USA would come to understand the truths found in this book.
Nearly every paragraph effects ones thinking in profound ways. I wish everyone in the USA would come to understand the truths found in this book.
November 4, 2024
Some interesting facts and insights, but way too much digression into minutiae to keep me reading.
April 16, 2025
Interesting analysis of two famous battles and one not so famous.
January 28, 2026
An interesting account of the American electorate desire for change.
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