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This is a remarkable book with profound implications. Hanson's argument about culture and warfare should be read with Hernando de Soto's The Mystery of Capitalism that argues that prosperity is also a function of culture and legality. The two books on very different topics actually make the same point and create a new analytical framework for understanding why some countries develop and become prosperous and powerful and others do not. Hanson makes the case that western military capabilities (currently on display in Afghanistan) are a function of culture going back to the rise of the Greek city-states. He asserts that the combination of a polity in which the warriors vote on going to war in which they will serve (in effect the property owning voters were the heart of the Greek Phalanx so they were voting to put themselves at risk). They needed to have a short campaign between the planting and harvest seasons since the warrior-farmers had to both sustain the economy and the battle creating a style of war which involved short direct shock actions (the Greek phalanx so brilliantly portrayed in Pressfield's the Gates of Fire). This reliance on infantry combat by disciplined units in direct shock assault was compounded by the economics of Greek geography. Faced with the reality that in small valleys surrounded by mountains you could produce ten infantrymen for every cavalrymen because horses are far more expensive than humans, the Greeks really emphasized the development of high technology (long spear, short stabbing sword, big shield, very tough helmet) infantry combat with extremely disciplined teams. Finally, Hanson asserts that the rule of law in the Greek city-state guaranteed every soldier a status and legal rights and protection which created a sense of stability and commitment unlike any non-western culture. It is the combination of voting and legality, which Hanson believes, combined to create such a powerful system of war. Hanson argues that this style of war led to two major breakthroughs that have persisted in the west to this day. First, the kind of courage required by a phalanx is a disciplined refusal to break. It is the opposite of the heroic courage of traditional warrior societies. In traditional warrior societies (including the Greeks of Homer's Iliad assaulting the Trojans with individual heroism in a pre-phalanx era) the warrior rushes forward individually to count coup (the native American model) or seize prisoners (the Aztec model) or simply kill enemies (the Gauls and Germans against the Romans). In the Greek phalanx and the Roman legion which grew from it the primary courage is the discipline of standing fast with your fellow soldiers and refusing to break even when overwhelmingly outnumbered (thus the British at Rorke's Drift when outnumber 35 to one never thought of breaking ranks and the American soldiers in Mogadishu never dreamed of an every man for themselves approach even when outnumbered by more than 100 to one). Second, the direct action model of warfare creates a ruthlessness, a directness, and a constant search for the decisive battle, which Hanson argues, is peculiarly western. Thus in the second world war Marshall argued for the direct frontal assault on German occupied Europe as the correct search for the decisive battle. Hanson asserts that other cultures emphasize deception, maneuver, indirect conflict, setting up symbolic fights but the western model is an overwhelming direct assault aimed at achieving decisive victory as quickly as possible and assuming that short term violence actually saves lives in the long run. Hanson reasons that three other patterns have made the west increasingly dominant in warfare. First, the Greek rational approach to scientific reasoning that emphasized facts and a constant search for better answers. Second, the use of free markets and commercial activity to create production systems has simply out-produced and out-modernized competitors. Hanson notes that there are virtually no cases of westerners importing non-western military technology but endless examples of non-westerners importing western technology. Third, the pragmatic approach to problem solving from the Greek and Roman tradition means that when western militaries encounter new realities (the Aztecs, the military systems of the Japanese Navy, the Ottoman Navy) there was a speed of analysis and flexible experimentation that non-westerners could not match. Hanson uses the battles of Salamis 480 B.C. (the Greeks defeat the Persians in a naval battle), Gaugemala 331 B.C. (Alexander's Greeks destroy the Persian Empire), Cannae 216 B.C. (the Romans are annihilated and respond by raising new armies to destroy Carthage), Poitiers 732 A.D. (French landed infantry defeats Muslim cavalry), Tenochtitlan 1520-1521 (a remarkably small number of Spanish conquer Mexico and destroy the Aztec empire), Lepanto 1571 (the Christian fleets destroy the Ottoman Navy and establish western naval supremacy in the Mediterranean), Rorke's Drift 1879 (a remarkably outnumbered British force defeats a Zulu Army), Midway 1942 ( in one improbable day the Americans destroy Japanese Carrier aviation and seize the initiative in the Pacific War), and Tet 1968 (despite stunningly false press coverage the American military decisively defeats the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese by developing better tactics and superior technology) in a magisterial sweep of military history to make his case. This is a book any sophisticated student of war or any citizen concerned about the role of warfare in national survival would want to read.