What Is Victor Davis Hanson's Ripples Of Battle?

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In Victor Davis Hanson's novel, Ripples of Battle, three major underrated battles are discussed at great detail. The battles are the Battle of Okinawa of World War II, the Battle of Shiloh of the American Civil War, and the Battle of Delium of the Peloponnesian War. The title uses the word ripples, by this Hanson describes the effects that arise from the battle. The effects described go much further than the victors of the battle and even the outcomes of the war. Hanson relates these seemingly insignificant battles’ influence all the way to the present mainly being categorized into three essential items of influence: how people today fight, how they live, and how they think. Various people, ideas, strategy, arose or were put down as a direct…show more content…
They prepared to storm the island on April 1st, 1945. The Japanese were really quite underdressed; they had a lot of gap to try and cover to avoid being absolutely slaughtered by the Americans. The Japanese found a way to keep up with America and even inflict very heavy losses of American lives: the dehumanization of Japanese soldiers’ lives. “Once it crossed the rubicon of accepting state-organized suicides as a legitimate military tactic, the Japanese commanders learned that it might we regain some of it’s lost ability to strike the Americans and perhaps stave off unconditional surrender” (Hanson 36). With all regard for life being dismissed, it now became a simple task of killing as many American soldiers as possible. American men were held back by the task of keeping his own life as well as the men around him. Japanese managed to eliminate these cares and were able to focus murdering as many men as possible without keeping themselves alive at all. The Japanese were clearly losing, especially after Okinawa. With this fact acknowledged there seemed to only be one goal in…show more content…
This was fought between the Greek city-state Athens and the Boeotian city’s forces. Hanson accounts the surprisingly dramatic impact of this battle both immediately and even until this present day on a variety of aspects about life, war, and thought. Athens was fighting on two fronts and wanted to eliminate the northern front, Boeotia, as to focus all their resources on the much stronger Sparta. In order to do so they were going to, attack Boeotia on two fronts at the same time, as to force the “outnumbered Boeotian army [to] to scatter between the pincers” (Hanson 176). Demosthenes, who was leading the naval front to northern Boeotia, arrived at his destination early and the Boeotians discovered the Athenian plans. Demosthenes simply sailed away “without accomplishing anything” (Hanson 176). Hippocrates, the general leading the Athenian infantry movement, got wind of the new developments and turned his marching soldiers away from Delium back towards Attica. “It seemed like there would be no fighting at all” (Hanson 177), as the eleven Boeotian generals or Boeotarchs decided whether or not to pursue battle. All but one decided there was no reason to attack the Athenian troops but the one final Boeotarch, Theban Pagondas, disagreed and giving an emotional speech that convinced all to pursue the Athenians. He claimed that attacking the enemy now

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