Uma História da Guerra - John Keegan

Uma História da Guerra

VERSÃO ECONÓMICA

John Keegan

Um estudo profundo, documentado por mapas e fotografias, que esclarece o papel da guerra na construção e transformação da sociedade. A história da humanidade e as relações entre cultura guerreira e civilização.

 

 http://www.tintadachina.pt/books.php

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Descrição:

Eloquente e enciclopédico, John Keegan percorre, nesta obra, séculos de conflito, caracterizando diferentes épocas e sociedades. Desde os rituais de combate da Idade da Pedra até à destruição em massa dos tempos modernos, passando pela organização das legiões romanas, pelo ideal de luta do Islão ou pela incontida violência dos cavaleiros das estepes, Keegan revela-nos os diversos modelos da prática de guerra, a par das grandes inovações da tecnologia militar: a descoberta do bronze e do ferro, a domesticação do cavalo, o carro de guerra e a arte da cavalaria, a introdução da pólvora e as armas de destruição maciça.

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Eis um estudo profundo e abrangente, amplamente documentado por mapas e fotografias, que culmina sugerindo caminhos para que o ser humano possa conter os efeitos devastadores de uma prática que é hoje mais destrutiva do que nunca.

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De acordo com o autor, «em última análise, existe apenas uma cultura guerreira. A sua evolução e transformação no tempo e no espaço, desde o início da humanidade até ao mundo contemporâneo, é a história da guerra».

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http://www.culturminho.com/Artigo.aspx?ID=9856073&Livro=Uma-Hist%C3%B3ria-da-Guerra-&Autor=John-Keegan

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O que é a guerra? Por que o homem luta contra o homem? Que diferenças há entre um guerreiro ianomâmi, um bárbaro das hostes de Átila e um soldado entrincheirado da Segunda Guerra Mundial? Como foi possível a humanidade chegar à beira da autodestruição total?Conhecedor profundo de tudo o que diz respeito à história militar, John Keegan aborda neste livro essas e muitas outras questões ligadas à guerra, oferecendo uma visão abrangente da História da humanidade a partir das formas de guerrear e do progresso da tecnologia bélica. Ao mesmo tempo, não esquece que a história da guerra acompanha a história do homem e que a guerra é um testemunho permanente da força de instintos e emoções que o coração humano faz tudo para camuflar. 

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http://www.travessa.com.br/HISTORIA_DA_GUERRA_UMA_ED_DE_BOLSO/artigo/d0192f36-89ca-4700-8e12-c1087e56712b

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Autor: John Keegan
Formação / Entidade: Docente na Academia Militar de Sandhurst, Universidade de Princeton, etc
Título: Uma História da Guerra
Editora: Tinta da China
Ano: 2006
















Sinopse

Em Uma História da Guerra John Keegan debruça-se não apenas sobre a guerra mas sobre toda a história da Humanidade e das relações entre cultura guerreira e civilização. Eloquente e enciclopédico, o autor percorre séculos de conflito, caracterizando diferentes épocas e sociedades. Desde os rituais de combate da Idade da Pedra até à destruição em massa dos tempos modernos, passando pela organização das legiões romanas, pelo ideal de luta do Islão ou a incontida violência dos cavaleiros das estepes, Keegan revela-nos os diversos modelos da prática de guerra, a par das grandes inovações da tecnologia militar: a descoberta do bronze e do ferro, a domesticação do cavalo, o carro de guerra e a arta da cavalaria, a introdução da pólvora e a mobilização da ciência e da indústria ao serviço da produção de armas de destruição maciça. Um estudo profundo e abrangente, documentado por mapas e fotografias, que culmina sugerindo caminhos para que o ser humano possa conter os efeitos devastadores de uma prática que é hoje mais destrutiva do que nunca.

"Keegan analisa todas as vertentes da história da guerra: a psicologia, a metalurgia, a genética, a logística, a arqueologia, a táctica e a estratégia... Domina com igual profundidade temas como o Império da Babilónia e a Segunda Guerra Mundial, e sobre todos tem algo de novo para dizer. A sua amplitude cultural é tão surpreendente como a sua capacidade para comunicar com o leitor."

Nigel Nicolson, Weekend Telegraph

"Uma obra-prima... um daqueles raros livros que ainda serão de leitura obrigatória daqui a cem anos."

New Yorker

"Um livro de abrangência universal pelo melhor historiador militar contemporâneo... Uma tour de force."

Niall Ferguson, Daily Mail

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http://www.nostrumtempus.blogspot.com/2008/07/john-keegan-uma-histria-da-guerra.html

July 25, 2008 

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John Keegan

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Sir John Desmond Patrick Keegan OBE (born 15 May 1934) is a British military historian, lecturer and journalist. He has published many works on the nature of combat between the 14th and 21st centuries concerning land, air, maritime and intelligence warfare as well as the psychology of battle.

Contents . 1 Life and career 2 Published work 3 Iraq War 4 Criticism 5 Works 6 References 6.1 Notes 6.2 Sources

Life and career

Keegan was born in Clapham, the son of an Irish Catholic family^[1]. His father served in the First World War.

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At the age of 13 Keegan contracted orthopedic tuberculosis, which has subsequently affected his gait. The long-term effects of his tuberculosis rendered him unfit for military service and the timing of his birth made him too young for service in World War II, as mentioned in his works as an ironic observation on his profession and interest.^[2] The illness also interrupted his education during his teenage years; however, his education included a period at King's College, Taunton and two years at Wimbledon College leading to entry to Balliol College, Oxford, in 1953. Following graduation he worked at the American Embassy in London for three years.

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In 1960 he was appointed to a lectureship in Military History at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, the training establishment for officers of the British Army. Holding the post for 26 years, he became senior lecturer in military history during his tenure. During this period he also held a visiting professorship at Princeton University and was Delmas Distinguished Professor of History at Vassar College, a visiting professorship.^[3]

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Leaving the academy in 1986^[4] Keegan joined the Daily Telegraph as a Defence Correspondent and remains with the publication as Defence Editor, also writing for the American conservative website, National Review Online. In 1998 he wrote and presented the BBC's Reith Lectures, entitled War in our World.

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Keegan was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the Gulf War honours list and later, in the Millennium honours list, he was knighted.

Published work

Keegan's books include a traditional battle-by-battle coverage of conflict, experience of the individual, historical causes of military events, technological change in warfare, military strategy, and challenges of leadership. He writes mainly for the educated non-specialist reader. Those who wish to sample his straightforward histories of war should read his histories of the Second World War and, more recently, of the First World War.

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His work examines warfare throughout history, including human prehistory and the classical era; however the majority of his work concentrates on the 14th Century onwards to modern conflict of the 20th and 21st Centuries.

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In A History of Warfare, Keegan outlines the development and limitations of warfare from prehistory to the modern era. It looks at various topics, including the use of horses, logistics, and "fire". One key concept put forward is that war is inherently cultural. In the introduction, he rigorously denounces the idiom "war is a continuation of policy by other means", rejecting on its face "Clausewitzian" ideas.

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He has also contributed to work on historiography in modern conflict. With Richard Holmes he wrote the BBC documentary Soldiers, a history of men in battle.

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Frank C. Mahncke wrote that Keegan is seen as being "among the most prominent and widely read military historians of the late twentieth century".^[5] In a book-cover blurb extracted from a more complex article, Sir Michael Howard wrote, "at once the most readable and the most original of living historians".^[6]

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His book, Fields of Battle: The Wars for North America, which gives accounts of many of the wars fought on the soil of North America, also contains opening and closing essays on his own personal relationship to America. He has continued his interest in American military history with the publication of his book The American Civil War (2009, Hutchinson).

Iraq War

An article in the Christian Science Monitor calls Keegan a "staunch supporter" of the Iraq War. The article quotes Keegan: "Uncomfortable as the 'spectacle of raw military force' is, he concludes, that the Iraq war represents 'a better guide to what needs to be done to secure the safety of our world than any amount of law-making or treaty-writing can offer.' "^[7] He frequently justifies the war by making comparisons between it and other, more popular wars, such as both World Wars and the Napoleonic Wars.

Criticism

Keegan has also been criticised by peers, including Sir Michael Howard^[8] and Christopher Bassford ^[9] for his critical position on Carl von Clausewitz, a Prussian officer and author of Vom Kriege (On War), one of the basic texts on warfare and military strategy. Keegan is described as "profoundly mistaken" and Bassford states that "Nothing anywhere in Keegan's work – despite his many diatribes about Clausewitz and 'the Clausewitzians' – reflects any reading whatsoever of Clausewitz's own writings." The political scientist Richard Betts has also criticized Keegan's understanding of the political dimensions of war, writing that Keegan is "a naïf about politics."^[10]

Works

• Barbarossa: Invasion of Russia, 1941 (New York, 1971) ISBN 0-345-02111-8
• Opening Moves - August 1941 (New York: Ballantine, 1971) ISBN 0-345-09798-X
• The Face of Battle (London, 1976) ISBN 0-670-30432-8
• Six Armies in Normandy (1982) ISBN 0-14-005293-3
• Zones Of Conflict: An Atlas Of Future Wars with Andrew Wheatcroft (New York, 1986) ISBN 0-671-60115-6
• Soldiers, A History of Men in Battle with Richard Holmes (New York: Viking Press, 1986) ISBN 0-670-80969-1
• The Mask of Command (London, 1987) ISBN 0-7126-6526-9
• The Price of Admiralty (1988) ISBN 0-09-173771-0
• Who Was Who In World War II (1978) ISBN 0-85368-182-1
• The Illustrated Face of Battle (New York and London: Viking, 1988) ISBN 0-670-82703-7
• The Second World War (Viking Press, 1990) ISBN 0-670-82359-7
• A History of Warfare (London, 1993) ISBN 0-679-73082-6
• The Battle for History: Refighting World War Two (Vintage Canada, 1995) ISBN 0-679-76743-6
• Warpaths (Pimlico, 1996) ISBN 1-8441-3750-3
• Fields of Battle: The Wars for North America (1997) ISBN 0-679-74664-1
• War and Our World: The Reith Lectures 1998 (London: Pimlico, 1999) ISBN 0-375-70520-1
• The Book of War (ed.) (Viking Press, 1999) ISBN 0-670-88804-4
• The First World War (London: Hutchinson, 1998) ISBN 0-09-1801788; (New York: Knopf, 1999) ISBN 0-375-40052-4
• Winston Churchill (2002) ISBN 0-670-03079-1
• Intelligence in War: Knowledge of the Enemy from Napoleon to Al-Qaeda (2003) ISBN 0-375-40053-2
• The Iraq War (2004) ISBN 0-09-180018-8
• Atlas of World War II (ed.) (London: Collins, 2006) ISBN 0-00-721465-0 (an update of the 1989 Times Atlas)
• The American Civil War (London, Hutchinson, 2009) ISBN 978-0-09-179483-5

References

Notes

1. ^ "John Keegan Biography". http://www.spiritus-temporis.com/john-keegan/. Retrieved 2008-06-05. 
2. ^ Interview (transcripted May 1994)
3. ^ Back cover of The First World War. Keegan, John, ISBN 0-375-40052-4
4. ^ http://www.booknotes.org/Transcript/?ProgramID=1198
5. ^ Naval War College - Frank C. Mahncke, Naval War College
6. ^ The New York Times Book Review - Sir Michael Howard
7. ^ America's bewildering battle in Iraq follows new rules
8. ^ Michael Howard, "To the Ruthless Belong the Spoils," The New York Times Book Review, 14 November 1993.
9. ^ War in History, November 1994, pp.319-336, Christopher Bassford available at "Clausewitz.com
10. ^ Betts, Richard (Fall 2000). "Is Strategy and Illusion?". International Security 25 (2): 25. 

Sources

• Snowman, Daniel "John Keegan" page 28–30 from History Today, Volume 50, Issue # 5, May 2000.

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Keegan"

 

Categories: 1934 births | Living people | People from Clapham | Alumni of Balliol College, Oxford | British historians | British military writers | World War I historians | World War II historians | English historians | English journalists | Knights Bachelor | Officers of the Order of the British Empire | British military historians

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