Author: Scott Manning
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Herodotus through the 24-hr News Cycle
While I was reading and tweeting Herodotus, I became inspired to produce a half dozen mock images of his stories as though Fox News or MSNBC reported them. My only goal was to bring more attention to Herodotus. In case you missed any of them, here they all are in one place (click for a…
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Time to give Hans Delbrück’s work an honorable burial?
In previous articles, we covered how historians have heaped praise upon Hans Delbrück and why that praise was warranted. However, it would be misleading to leave out the fact that many of Delbrück’s principles have not maintained any prominence in military history whatsoever. For example, he believed that historians should only focus on history where…
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Live Review of 300: Rise of an Empire
For those of you who missed it, here are the tweets from my live review of 300: Rise of an Empire. I saw the movie twice and on the second viewing, I decided to review live. Also, I was sure not to bother the other patrons with my mobile phone use. I am tweeting all…
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Were these wars worth fighting over sovereignty?
With a potential war over Ukraine’s sovereignty looming, it is important to understand the kind of war such a dispute could bring. Some of the largest wars started over what later seemed like a trivial matter. Before Thucydides recounted the dispute between Athens and Sparta leading up to the Peloponnesian War, he stated that he considered “the…
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Culloden Battlefield and Hallowed Ground
We Americans treat many of our battlefields as sacred and weep for the ones that are lost to development. Groups such as the Civil War Trust do a superb job organizing people and money to buy up ground, fight development, transfer land to the National Park Service, and do whatever is necessary to preserve battlefields…
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Why I’m tweeting Herodotus
About a week ago, I started tweeting as I read Herodotus. It started as a trickle, but the past few days have yielded dozens of tweets from this ancient historian. Aside from the usual updates and sarcastic quips, I have tweeted everything I get out of Herodotus. This started as quotes, but now includes summaries…
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Hans Delbrück’s Timeless Principles: Troop Estimates, Topography
In a previous article, I covered how military historians have stumbled over themselves to heap praise upon Hans Delbrück. Now I will demonstrate why that praise is warranted. In a future article, I will demonstrate why it is not. The overarching question for these articles is why military historians should care about Hans Delbrück. Quite simply, Delbrück has…
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Is Hans Delbrück worthy of this praise?
Why should military historians care about Hans Delbrück? Like it or not, the legacy of Delbrück as a military historian is still strong even 85 years after his death. Before we get into that, consider some of the praise heaped upon him by other military historians, dubbing him as “the first modern military historian” –…
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Renaissance-era Restorations to the Dying Gaul
In addition to the Dying Gaul being a remarkable piece from antiquity, the restorations of it have become part of its rich history. Originally excavated around 1620, it saw several restorations immediately afterward. While the piece seems complete now, it was missing its right arm, left knee, toes, left thumb, nose, penis, and portions of…
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Concrete Proof the Gauls Fought Naked
Several Roman historians tell stories of Gauls fighting in the nude. ((Plb. 2.28.8, Diod. 5.30.3, and Liv. 38.21.)) The Dying Gaul on display at the National Gallery of Art corroborates their tales or at least that they believed them. Regardless, it is a remarkable display of Roman appreciation for Hellenistic art. Here is my appreciation. At…
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If you visited the Chalmette battlefield today…
Winston Churchill described the Battle of New Orleans (1815) as the “most irresponsible British onslaught” and “one of the most unintelligent maneuvers in the history of British warfare.” ((Winston S. Churchill, The Age of Revolution, A History of the English-Speaking Peoples 3 (Toronto: Bantan Books, 1957), 296, 297.)) The battle was a classic, horrific march…
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Book Review: Protecting the Flank at Gettysburg
Clausewitz tells us “war is nothing but a duel on a larger scale. Countless duels go to make up war.” We can go one-step further in that countless duels make up a battle, especially larger battles. Historians such as Eric J. Wittenberg understand this and with a seemingly over-analyzed battle such as Gettysburg, he continues…