Started: 12/2/2023
Completed: 12/10/2023
Recommendation: Recommended
Recommended By: Nobody
Words for which I sought help:
escalade -- the scaling of fortified walls using ladders as a form of military attack
Review:
Goldsworthy opens by suggesting that this book will be about more than just war. It isn't. It is all about war. Maybe that is fine because that is the record we have. Still I hoped to learn about culture exchange between the groups, to learn about trading communities, and to learn about trading paths. None of that. Because, what the real time writers talked about was wars. We have no idea if there are plays that the two cultures have in common. It is entirely unclear whether there were gladiatorial combats in Persia...or at least this book simply doesn't address it. Intermarriage is constrained to the intermixing of royal families that led to, you guessed, it, war. Goldsworthy tells us about wars, fortifications, attack paths, and even elephants (yes, used in war), but nothing about anything else. Oh well.
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