The Anatomy of Error: Ancient Military Disasters and Their Lessons for Modern Strategists

by Barry S. Strauss, Josiah Ober

Presents the flawed strategies of eight military leaders including Mark Antony, Hannibal, and Jugurtha

Genres: History, Military Fiction, Military History, Ancient History

272 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1990

About the author

Barry Strauss, professor of history and classics at Cornell University, is a leading expert on ancient military history. He has written or edited several books, including The Battle of Salamis, The Trojan War, The Spartacus War, Masters of Command, The Death of Caesar, and Ten Caesars.

Reviews

[Manray9]

The Anatomy of Error: Ancient Military Disasters and Their Lessons for Modern Strategists is just Three Star material. The authors expend much effort in belaboring the obvious, but there are good capsules of the campaigns of the ancient generals -- especially the Jugurthine War, Marc Antony versus Octavian, and Julian's invasion of Persia.

Strauss and Ober wrapped up with the pithy observation:

Most of the subjects we have studied lost the war in spite of winning battles. They lost because they had avoided the painful but necessary process of thinking through and trying to overcome unexamined assumptions, opinions, and prejudices about themselves and about their enemies...Confidence, to be firm, needs to rest on a foundation of questioning and skepticism. The past is a guide, but it is not a crutch. The strategist engaged in a constant process of rethinking is the one most likely to avoid making disastrous errors.

That is, in fact, a lesson for modern strategists.

[Liquidlasagna]

Library Journal

Two more books of military history written for general audiences. Strauss and Ober discuss strategic failure in the classical world in terms of defeated generals and political leaders from Xerxes of Persia to Julian the Apostate.

These losers share a common incapacity to consider and overcome unexamined assumptions about themselves and their enemies, say the authors. But the authors go on to defend good decision-making in relentlessly Clausewitzian terms that overlook the essential differences between the state systems of 19th-century Europe and the ancient Mediterranean.

Such presentmindedness is unlikely to liberate the study of ancient history from its specialist ghetto. Karl proposes to describe situations from Thermopylae to Dien Bien Phu in which "an elite unit of soldiers stands to the last men with little hope of victory."

His definition of 'elite' is extremely broad. The mixed bag of Germans and other Europeans that defended Berlin in 1945 hardly qualifies as an elite in the sense of the Theban Sacred Band.

Moreover, instead of concentrating on the composition, motivation, and behavior of these doomed units, Karl writes generalized campaign history, with the last stand itself sometimes dismissed in a few paragraphs.

The Anatomy of Error is flawed by a restrictive analytic structure; Glorious Defiance fails to progress beyond descriptive narrative. Neither can be recommended except as supplements for large collections.
Dennis Showalte

[Abdulla]

This is a very good book with an interesting perspective. Focusing on the losers rather than the winners, it describes why the losers adopted the strategies they did, and how we can learn from their mistakes. Too often, the narrative of history is one of how the victors were smarter, stronger, braver, and why they therefore won, rather than what went wrong for the losers.

Most of each chapter is taken up with a narrative of the particular error (with only a few pages of discussion). I therefore think it's perfectly readable for those who are beginners to the topics here; I found I especially enjoyed the chapters which I knew less about.

Particular highlights for me were:
Chapter 3: Sparta's failure to establish a hegemony in the aftermath of the Peloponnesian War
Chapter 6: The Jugurthine Wars
Chapter 8: The Emperor Julian's failure and death in his attempt to take the Sassanid Persian Empire.

I think there are certainly life lessons in this book; strategic and open-minded thinking is crucial for many fields.

A key note: the errors described in this book are broad, strategic errors, not more specific battlefield mistakes (example: the chapter on Darius III focuses not on how he deployed his forces at Gaugamela or Issus, rather his decision to fight those massive battle at all.)

[James]

Good, although the authors didn't tread any really new ground. They point out fundamental errors in thinking, decision-making, and relating to other powers that led a number of ancient kings and commanders to catastrophic defeats. Anyone reading this will see parallels to modern situations, but also some false parallels, things that appeared similar but turned out differently because of sometimes subtle differences.

[Bradley]

I loved this book, it talks about like the 20 greatest battles of the ancient past! Very good reading! =)

[Mark Baller]

Good book on military history and how cultural and political assumptions affect military outcomes.