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The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire |  | Author: Edward N. Luttwak
Publisher: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press
Category: Book
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Rating:  12 reviews
Sales Rank: 17213
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1St Edition
Pages: 512
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.1
Dimensions (in): 9.4 x 6.2 x 1.7
ISBN: 0674035194
Dewey Decimal Number: 355.033549500902
EAN: 9780674035195
ASIN: 0674035194
Publication Date: November 1, 2009
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| • | ISBN13: 9780674035195 | | • | Condition: NEW | | • | Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark. |
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Product Description
In this book, the distinguished writer Edward Luttwak presents the grand strategy of the eastern Roman empire we know as Byzantine, which lasted more than twice as long as the more familiar western Roman empire, eight hundred years by the shortest definition. This extraordinary endurance is all the more remarkable because the Byzantine empire was favored neither by geography nor by military preponderance. Yet it was the western empire that dissolved during the fifth century. The Byzantine empire so greatly outlasted its western counterpart because its rulers were able to adapt strategically to diminished circumstances, by devising new ways of coping with successive enemies. It relied less on military strength and more on persuasionâto recruit allies, dissuade threatening neighbors, and manipulate potential enemies into attacking one another instead. Even when the Byzantines foughtâwhich they often did with great skillâthey were less inclined to destroy their enemies than to contain them, for they were aware that today’s enemies could be tomorrow’s allies. Born in the fifth century when the formidable threat of Attila’s Huns were deflected with a minimum of force, Byzantine strategy continued to be refined over the centuries, incidentally leaving for us several fascinating guidebooks to statecraft and war. The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire is a broad, interpretive account of Byzantine strategy, intelligence, and diplomacy over the course of eight centuries that will appeal to scholars, classicists, military history buffs, and professional soldiers. (20091028)
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 12
 the grand strategy of the byzantine empire February 17, 2010
Appiano Enrico (Pordenone, Italy)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
The book answers a lot of questions about the long history of the eastern part of the former Romer empire, and its enormous importance in the defence or european culture and civilization.
A book highly recommendable for anybody interested in history
Timeless Strategy and a resource on Byzantine Culture January 28, 2010
William H. Moldestad Jr. (Minnesota)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
A great book on strategy that is tempered with the practicality of living in a dangerous and volatile world, as seen through the grand prism of the Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire. The lessons to be learned from the Byzantines are as relevant today as they were back then. The book is filled with colorful information about Byzantine culture. And in an engaging way, uses recent history (e.g. WWII events) to illustrate what can be learned from the Byzantine Empire.
The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire January 16, 2010
Sacramento Book Review (Sacramento, CA)
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
What can America learn about strategy from a vanished empire whose very name means "devious?" Almost everything, according to //The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire//, by Edward Luttwak. A leading strategic theorist and intellectual provocateur, Luttwak's previous writings include the much praised "Strategy: the Logic of War and Peace" and "Coup d'État: A Practical Handbook." Here he brings his keen research and analytical skills to explaining how Byzantium, surrounded by hostile powers that possessed superior natural resources, managed to not only survive but flourish, outlasting the Western Roman Empire by almost 1,000 years.
Yet this work is not an academic exercise - throughout Luttwak offers an implicit roadmap for U.S. decision makers, a plea that they shed their narrow dogmatisms with its search for "the end of history," and replace it with Byzantium's subtle practicality. "The Byzantines knew better. They knew that peace was a temporary interruption of war, that as soon as one enemy was defeated, another would take its place...Even the destruction of the enemy was not a definitive gain, because in the unending war, yesterday's enemy could become the best ally." And as everywhere, their success abroad rested on sound finances at home, Byzantium's advanced tax collecting methods, unmatched at the time, providing the Empire a deep purse.
Practical rules abound. Avoid war at all costs (since war is expensive and even victory's results are unpredictable). Maintain a military as if war could come at any time (which is the most efficient deterrence). Use force prudently. If enemy strategies or techniques prove superior, adopt them, without hesitation. Invest in gathering intelligence. Embrace diplomacy. Eschew occupations and over-commitment in favor of flexibility and mobility.
For Luttwak, realism and judiciousness are the hallmarks of a successful sustainable national program. Nor is this an abstract book. Leader by leader, conflict by conflict the author distills valuable lessons as well as offering an excellent overview of the empire's strengths and weaknesses, their successes and failures, often drawing useful analogies to more recent history. Even details that many think would be dry - the importance of composite bow technology and the over-emphasis on the stirrup by historians - are presented in a way that is not only digestible, but entertaining. His command of detail, from small unit tactics, to the impact of epidemics on Byzantium, to immigration patterns of the tribes of the Asian steppes, would make this amateur historian the envy of most professionals.
Perhaps most interesting, Luttwak shows how the empire was several times driven to the brink, only to reemerge more vibrant than before. In a period marred by pessimism, this work offers hope, and that should be reason enough for anyone with a serious interest in international affairs to reflect on //The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire// and recognize how much they have to teach us.
Reviewed by Jordan Magill
 Good to a point January 10, 2010
Lucas Mcmahon (Canada)
16 out of 22 found this review helpful
This book has many problems. I'll start with where many books on Byzantium begin: the preface. A large number of books on Byzantium have a preface that describes the transliteration style that the author has chosen. This book does not have that, and that is not a problem, but what is a problem is Luttwak's completely inconsistant methods of transliteration. Terms transliterated in different ways show up on opposite pages, for example. Sometimes multiple transliterations are given when a name or term is first introduced, but that is not a hard and fast rule and it changes at random throughout the book. It also has numerous grammatical errors - mostly missing words and whatnot, but a thorough edit could easily have taken care of this issue. He also uses a lot of modern military vocabulary, which goes somewhat beyond the Byzantine context and simply serves to make the book seem stilted at times.
As for the content, Luttwak is mostly well-read and well-informed and is up to-date with modern Byzantine scholarship, and as such, I expected a lot more from his work. There are a couple of minor details, such as the fall of Syria to the Arabs and the dating of the sea walls of Constantinople where he has simply been forced to go along with one scholar over another, as no consensus exists. My main problem is with his historical method and organization. For a book on grand strategy, I would have hoped that he would have come up with one for the organization of his book, but Luttwak does not. It starts with the Huns and ends with Herakleios in Persia, and is organized more as a series of minor, poorly-directed essays combined into a book. The issue here is that Luttwak does not provide any sort of analysis to his work. Most of the page space is spent telling the historical story behind his point or performing some half-baked source criticism. There is no new information in this book whatsoever, and it suffers for it. Most of it is made up of rote recitation of the sources or modern scholarly opinion. He also misses an awful lot of events that certainly exemplify Byzantine strategy - for example, the crusades are almost ignored, as is the Empire post-1204. The maps are also very poor, and one can see that they were edited with a pencil, and where the cartographer erased earlier marks.
This leaves me wondering who exactly is the target audience for this book? Scholars are going to find almost nothing of value here - John Haldon's 'Warfare, State and Society in the Byzantine World' is a much more informative and academic text. This book is also not a great general military history of Byzantium with a focus on strategy, as it almost completely ignores some topics, like the theme system. And yet it seems to be written for those who have little or no experience with the Byzantine military. A good 100 pages of the book are just spent reciting what the military manuals have said. Now admittedly parts of this are useful - for example there is no complete English edition of Nikephoros Ouranos' massive work, and good luck finding Kekaumenos' text, but four of the major ones discussed in the text are easily available in editions translated by George T. Dennis, and a fifth, the 'Taktika' of Leo VI, is due out Summer 2010. He occasionally goes off on tangents about who he believes the authors of these various military manuals are - sometimes in violation of academic tradition. It is perfectly acceptable to make such statements, but one should try and back them up with some sort of historical research and a good argument, in which Luttwak fails to do and this just goes on to demonstrate his inability to properly analyze history in its historical context.
So far, it sounds like I am writing a review for a one-star book, but I have given it three. This is because, for all of the flaws of historical method, organization, no clearly-defined audience and the apparent lack of a good edit, Luttwak's conclusions are valid. While at times he takes them outside of their context and frequently refers to them in modern military parlance, his assessment of Byzantine strategy is correct, even if this book does not reveal any new information.
In sum, this is a decent and easy read, but adds little or nothing to Byzantine scholarship. Most of the points that Luttwak discusses were briefly made in Harris' 'Byzantium and the Crusades' in regard to Byzantine strategic thought. Many other reviewers have gone on ad naseum about how this book can be applied to modern military strategy. This is irrelevant, as this book claims to be a study of Byzantine strategy, even though it reveals little or nothing in that regard.
Byzantine in Every Way December 27, 2009
Retired Reader (New Mexico)
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
Edward Luttwak has devoted much of his career to the analysis of the concepts of strategy especially what is called `grand strategy'. In this book he has attempted to distill the basics of the grand strategy used by the Eastern Roman or Byzantine Empire to out last the Western Roman Empire by almost 1000 years. Since grand strategy is a modern concept, Luttwak had to analyze the history of the Byzantine Empire and infer the strategic designs that it followed from relevant historical evidence, including events, fragmentary comments, and official writings. All in all, he has done a pretty good job of it.
Constantinople (Istanbul) was at the center of Byzantine strategy since for much of its history it was the most prosperous and populous city in Western Christendom. Its unique location made it highly defendable and indeed until it was successfully captured in the Fourth Crusade (1204) it was the anchor of the Empire. The Byzantines used the magnificence and wealth of the city as well as the carefully staged extreme opulence and ritual of the imperial court to overawe enemies and allies alike. Operating from this nearly impregnable bastion, successive Emperors and their bureaucracies were able to employ a complex mixture of intelligence information, bribery, diplomatic maneuvering including duplicity, and military force to thwart all imperial enemies even in the face of much stronger military forces. Perhaps their greatest enemy was the high cost of their strategy for in spite of a very effective system of taxes Byzantium was very near to bankruptcy several times in its history.
Since the very survival of the Empire was at stake, the Byzantines studied and analyzed the strengths and weaknesses of their potential enemies in a very modern and effective manner. Their military forces evolved over the years, but until the last 200 years before the destruction of the empire, always included a strong navy and an army consisting of a core of well trained native troops supplemented by large contingents of mercenaries. After the Emperor Justinian (ce 6th Century) the empire was largely on the defensive. As Luttwak explains in considerable detail the Byzantines developed a strategy that enabled them to defend and maintain the empire against a variety enemies bent on its destruction. This is an interesting and well researched book
Showing reviews 1-5 of 12
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