Through 10 essays by various noted historians, this book attempts to demonstrate that the military thinking and policies of the ancient Greco-Romans remain relevant to understand conflict in the modern world. Ancient leaders include Xerxes, Pericles, Epaminondas, Alexander, Spartacus, and Caesar.

I thought most essays were excellent, providing a nice balance between necessary background information and analysis.

This type of book is a nice addition to the typical standard historical work which focuses on a particular campaign or leader. ( )

If you gather together a distinguished group of historians and have them produce articles stretching from the Persians to Late Antiquity Rome you would have something similar to what was produced here. This is a first-rate reflection on ancient strategy encompassing the vast range of issues and concerns in the classical Greek and Roman worlds. The contributors do not attempt to exhaustively document the lengthy period under discussion, which is a good thing, but they comprehensively consider the weighty moments of illustrative points of Greek and Roman strategy. Also helpfully, they reflect on contemporary applications for today, including the issues of insurgency, guerrilla warfare, and nation building, none of these concerns though detract but rather add to the intriguing insights they engender. Neither the Greeks nor the Romans developed an overarching and long-lasting strategy in their conflicts thus it is up to the historians rather to reconstruct the more immediate and relevant concerns to the principals involved.