Mentionable books

In the next few posts I am going to go over books I have read recently.

First off is The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire by Edward N. Luttwak. This is a book about military strategy and tactics but, in fact, I learned more about the Byzantine empire from this book than many other attempts at political, sociological or economic versions of Byzantine history. Most of the other books cover the life of Justinian based on "The Secret History" of Procopius. After covering his life, his wife and his genreal, a few extra chapters are often thrown in to cover almost a thousand years of Byzantine history that did not involve Justinian. From these books one would think Belasarius, Justinian's general, was the only military leader that the Byzantine Empire produced.

In fact there were many generals as well as books of strategy and tactics. Luttwak studied these and his book describes the various invaders that the Eastern Roman Empire fought against and what the "Romans" learned while defending against them. It seems many of the invaders rode on horseback, and the Roman armies went from being Centurion Infantry to being mounted archers in imitation as there was no other way to survive. The new methods of fighting required extensive training over a long period of time. The whole society had to be reorganized multiple times throughout its existence in order to provide the taxes to support the professional soldiers.

Likewise, other histories mention the various invaders who later settled on the borders of the Empire. Why they were allowed to do this isn't always clear and in some books this phenomenon is accepted as a matter of fact. Luttwak describes how Byzantium did not fight the invaders in order to exterminate them, something that would be way too costly in terms of men and gold but instead, their strategists used invading tribes as buffers against new invaders and helped forge them into nations either deliberately or accidentally while trying to strengthen them as buffers against the endless stream of invaders coming out of Asia. Slavs, Hungarians, Russians went through this process. At one point the Byzantines tried to use the "Franks" (what they called all Christian Western Europe) as another of these tools and kick started the crusades. The later Crusaders sacked the city and weakened it to the point that it finally collapsed.

I believe this book would be enjoyed by those interested in current military strategy and current geopolitics as well as the ancient history of the Eastern Roman Empire. It also illustrates what the Western Roman Empire failed to do to prevent its collapse (though, apparently, Justinian's attempts to re-conquer the West might have just helped in its further collapse.) As such, it should be of read by those interested in the late stages of the Western Roman Empire.

All in all, an enjoyable book.