Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #466295 in Books
• Published on: 2001-06-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 352 pages

From Booklist
The three Punic Wars between Rome and Carthage from 264 to 146 B.C. irrevocably changed the course of ancient history. Carthage, with her empire centered in North Africa, was humbled and then destroyed. Before the wars, Rome's power was limited to the Italian peninsula; by the end of the wars, Rome was the dominant power in the Mediterranean and was poised on the brink of even greater imperial expansion. Goldsworthy is an Oxford graduate and clinical scholar with particular expertise in Roman military history. His survey of this pivotal conflict is a masterful account that will appeal to both specialists and general readers who appreciate a superbly told story. Goldsworthy explains complicated military moves in easily understood language, and he conveys the vast scope and carnage of the wars with both insight and objectivity. His portraits of some of the key players, including Hannibal, Scipio Africanus, and Fabius Maximus, are both informative and thought-provoking. This story, of course, has been told before, but rarely as well. Jay Freeman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Customer Reviews

Excellent in-depth introduction.
I have no idea whether this book would be of any value to someone already passably knowledgeable about the subject, to say nothing of someone already well-versed. But if, like me before I read it, you have little to no knowledge of the subject, you will learn a great deal from this book. It gives a very good overview of the wars between Rome and Carthage in the second and third centuries BCE, detailing what is known, and when original sources conflict or are suspect, admitting as much and giving a reasonable idea of what the most plausible speculations are, and if there is one, what the consensus is. The writing, while not particularly lively, is far from stultifying, and generally clear and as concise as practical. It is an understatement and perhaps faint praise to say that if before reading this book, the sum total of your knowledge of the subject is "Hannibal crossed the alps using elephants," you will know far more than that when you finish.

Solid
Written by an acknowledged authority on the Roman army and aimed at a general audience, this is a fine overview of the Punic Wars. Goldsworthy does a good job of balancing a broader perspective on these conflicts with the basic narrative. As he is quick to point out, there are considerable limits on what we know about the Punic Wars. There are no Carthaginian sources and most knowledge comes from a relatively restricted set of Greek or Roman literary sources, notably the works of the Greek historian Polybius and the Roman historians Livy and Appian. Polybios is generally considered to be the most important of these writers and the later parts of his work are fragmentary.

Goldsworthy provides a nice set of concise narratives of each of the Punic Wars, reconstructing to the extent possible, the major features of the military history. He is a solid writer and these sections read well. The narrative sections are set against an interesting analysis of the background of the Punic Wars and a couple of major themes. Goldworthy, apparently following the analysis of Polybius, sees the Carthaginians as following the common practices of Hellenistic warfare; powerful states waging war with largely professional forces and for defined advantages, leading usually to some form of negotiated capitulation on the part of the loser with the defeated retaining significant assets. The Romans, on the other hand, are presented as remorsely pursuing war until their opponents were completely defeated and Roman superiority established definitively. Again, apparently following Polybius, this is presented as a basic feature of the Roman political system, essentially a state geared for imperialistic warfare and absorption of the conquered. An interesting measure of the commitment of the Roman state is his estimate of the casulties suffered by the Roman political class in the course of military service during the Second Punic War. This is approximately 25%, an astonishing figure.

Another basic theme is the difference in resources between Rome and Carthage. In Goldworthy's analysis, the Romans appear to have possessed not only greater political and social commitment to war but also superior economic and manpower resources. While Carthage was wealthy and could put forward impressive efforts, it never matched the Roman commitments of troops and ships. Both Roman commitment and Roman resources are shown in the First Punic War by the Roman commitment to a grinding war of attrition in the conquest of Sicily and the Roman ability to repeatedly construct and man enormous new fleets. In the Second Punic War, the Romans pursued impressive campaigns in the Italian peninsula, Spain, Sicily, and eventually Africa, while also pursuing war in Greece. For the time, many of these conflicts were remarkably costly. Goldsworthy's estimates of the scope of naval conflicts in the First Punic War and land battles in the Second Punic War are impressive.

There is a good bibliography and footnoting is solid.

A clear and interesting explanation of events
I came away from reading this with a satisfied feeling that I more clearly understood the great conflict between Rome and Carthage, the origins of the wars, the campaigns and individual battles, the leadership of both sides, and the consequences of the wars in their effects upon European and world history.

The only negatives I can think of is that there were a few errors in the text, the book lacks a full bibliography - although most referenced sources are covered in the notes - and I don't believe that the author's comparisons of the Punic wars with modern wars, e.g. World War Two or the 1991 Gulf War. were completely accurate; there is still too much propaganda floating about from both conflicts to make them clearly understood, let alone to be comparitive with these ancient struggles.

However, a general comparison that perhaps COULD have been made was the decline of Rome in so many ways - and in spite of its great expansion of power - from the second and third centuries B.C., with the situation of the United States - also in great decline in some ways and in spite of its massive global power. As in, the decline of the farmers/peasantry, the shifting of the military establishment from a citizen militia force to a professional army made up of the poor and of aliens, the increase of political and economic corruption, increased overconfidence and arrogance in the handling of international affairs, and in various other spheres.

The author makes some interesting points re the general disappearance of small farms in Italy and their replacement with large latifundia owned by the wealthy and worked by slaves - consequential to these wars of expansion coupled with the devastation in Italy itself by both sides, and his discussion of the transformation of the Roman legions from a mostly citizen militia force into a professional army.

The book overall is very enlightening and readable and I highly recommend it.