Robert Drews.
The End of the Bronze Age: Changes in Warfare and the Catastrophe ca. 1200 B.C..
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993.
The book at the publisher's web site.

During a 40 or 50 year period from about 1225 B.C. through about 1175 B.C. most of the major cities in Greece, Anatolia (especially the Hittite Empire), Crete, Cyprus, and the eastern regions of the Mediterranean as far inland as the upper Euphrates River and south to southern Canaan were sacked and deliberately burned. The civilization of the Hittites was destroyed and Mycenaean Greece collapsed soon after. Egypt was severely stressed but beat back their attackers. The Assyrians (an inland empire) were not particularly affected.

Egyptian inscriptions refer to the "Sea Peoples." Who were they? Where did they come from? What accounts for their military success? This occurred before the invention of alphabetic writing and narrative history, so it has taken historians and archeologists a long time to decipher what happened.

After refuting previous explanations for the Catastrophe (Earthquakes, Migrations, the introduction of Ironworking, Drought, Systems Collapse, Raiders) Drews writes (page 97):
The Castrophe can most easily be explained, I believe, as a result of a radical innovation in warfare, which suddenly gave to "barbarians" the military advantage over the long established and civilized kingdoms of the eastern Mediterranean. We shall see that the Late Bronze Age kingdoms, both large and small, depended on armies in which the main component was a chariot corps. A king's military might was measured in horses and chariots: a kingdom with a thousand chariots was many times stronger than a kingdom with only a hundred. By the beginning of the twelfth century [B.C.], however, the size of a king's chariotry ceased to make much difference, because by that time chariotry everywhere had become vulnerable to a new kind of infantry.
And on page 104 Drews writes:
The thesis of the present study is that the Catastrophe came about when men in "barbarian" lands awoke to the truth that had been with them for some time: the chariot-based forces on which the Great Kingdoms relied could be overwhelmed by swarming infantries, the infantryman being equipped with javelins, long swords, and a few essential pieces of armor. The barbarians - in Libya, Palestine, Israel, Lycia, northern Greece, Italy, Sicily, Sardinia, and elsewhere - thus found it within their means to assault, plunder, and raze the richest palaces and cities on the horizon, and this they proceded to do.

Drews thus provides an example of the phonomena that has been studied by historians of other periods under the title of "Military Revolution." His argument is strongly based upon a "weaponry revolution" (page 205) that occurred in temperate Europe in the fourteenth or thirteenth centuries B.C.: the development and diffusion of slashing or cut-and-thrust swords. Drews also makes the interesting point that the Late Bronze Age civilizations depended upon a small professionalized chariot-based armies to counter similar armies. The collapse of those civilizations was brought upon by large infantry armies and this instigated a cultural evolution in which civilized peoples required military expertise among a much broader segment of the population. In the final sentence of the book (page 225) Drews writes: "The military revolution that occurred in the Catastrophe was thus a prerequisite for the social and political changes that made the world of the Iron Age so different from that of the Late Bronze Age."

I should also add that, with this book, the mystery of "Sea Peoples" evaporates.

Some Related Books, Late Bronze Age:
(1) The Sea Peoples and Their World: A Reassessment edited by Eliezer D. Oren and Donald W. Jones, 2000.
(2) Collapse of the Bronze Age : The Story of Greece, Troy, Israel, Egypt, and the Peoples of the Sea by Manuel Robbins, 2001.
(3) The Coming of the Greeks: Indo-European Conquests in the Aegean and the Near East by Robert Drews, 1988.

Some Related Web Pages, Late Bronze Age:
(1) The Collapse of Mycenae (a map of destruction in Greece)
(2) Who Were the Sea People by Robert Anderson (includes images of the Egyptian inscriptions).
(3) Wikipedia Sea Peoples entry.
(4) The Incursions of the Sea Peoples.
(5) Hellenic Tribes (scroll down for a discussion of Sea Peoples).
(6) Ramses III and the Sea Peoples by E.J. de Meester.
(7) The cultural 'collapse' at the end of the Bronze Age in the Eastern Mediterranean.
(8) The Collapse of Mycenaean Palatial Civilization and the Coming of the Dorians.
(9) Fall of the Bronze Age by Nicholas K. Rauh.

Some Related Books, Military Revolution:
(1) The Military Revolution : Military Innovation and the Rise of the West, 1500-1800 by Geoffrey Parker, second edition 1996.
(2) The Military Revolution and Political Change: Origins of Democracy and Autocracy in Early Modern Europe by Brian M. Downing, 1992.
(3) The Military Revolution Debate: Readings on the Military Transformation of Early Modern Europe edited by Clifford J. Rogers, 1995.
(4) The Dynamics of Military Revolution, 1300-2050 edited by MacGregor Knox and Williamson Murray, 2001.
(5) Success Is Never Final: Empire, War, and Faith in Early Modern Europe by Geoffrey Parker, 2003.


Historians' concept of "Military Revolution" may provide a historical basis for recent military strategists' discussions of a "Revolution in Military Affairs", refering generally to current and future military reforms and innovations.

Some Related Books, "Revolution in Military Affairs" and Current Military Strategy Debates:
(1) Winning the Next War: Innovation and the Modern Military by Stephen Peter Rosen, 1994.
(2) Military Innovation in the Interwar Period edited by Williamson R. Murray and Allan R. Millett, 1996.
(3) Technological Change and the Future of Warfare by Michael E. O'Hanlon, 2000.
(4) Lifting the Fog of War by William A. Owens, 2000.
(5) Managing the Revolution in Military Affairs edited by Ron Matthews and John Treddenick, 2001.
(6) Phantom Soldier: The Enemy's Answer to U.S. Firepower by H. John Poole and William S. Lind, 2001.
(7) The Path to Victory : America's Army and the Revolution in Human Affairs by Donald Vandergriff, 2002.
(8) Asymmetrical Warfare: Today's Challenge to US Military Power by Roger W. Barnett, 2003.
(9) Transformation Under Fire : Revolutionizing How America Fights by Douglas A. Macgregor, 2003.
(10) The Iraq War: A Military History by Williamson Murray and Robert H. Scales, Jr., 2003

This web site, Revolution in Military Affairs, contains reviews of some of the above named books.

Some Related Web Pages, "Revolution in Military Affairs":
(1) The Art of War by Frederick W. Kagan, in The New Criterion, November 2003. (I highly recommend this very instructive article.)
(2) The RMA Debate.
(3) Revolution In Military Affairs Research conducted by Michael O'Hanlon, Brookings Institute.
(4) Network Centric Warfare (NCW) & Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA).
(5) Can We Afford a Revolution in Military Affairs? (Yes.)
(6) U.S. Marine Corps Warfighting Lab, Wargaming Division Revolution in Military Affairs Series.
(7) The Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) Is Not Only about High-Tech Weapons.
(8) Asymmetric Threat - Revolution in Military Affairs.
(9) Joint Force Quarterly.
(10) The Mythical Revolution in Military Affairs.


Some Related Books, Military Strategy:
(1) Makers of Modern Strategy from Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age edited by Peter Paret and Gordon A. Craig, 1986.
(2) America's First Battles, 1776-1965 edited by Charles E. Heller and William A. Stofft, 1986.
(3) The Patterns of War Through the Eighteenth Century by Larry H. Addington, 1990.
(4) The Patterns of War Since the Eighteenth Century by Larry H. Addington, 1994.
(5) The Making of Strategy: Rulers, States, and War edited by Williamson Murray, Alvin Bernstein, and MacGregor Knox, 1994.
(6) Modern Strategy by Colin S. Gray, 1999.
(7) Strategy: The Logic of War and Peace by Edward N. Luttwak, 2002.
(8) A History of Military Thought: From the Enlightenment to the Cold War by Azar Gat, 2002.
(9) The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 by A. T. Mahan.
(10) Strategy, by B. H. Liddell Hart.
(11) On War by Carl von Clausewitz, translated by Michael Eliot Howard and Peter Paret (the preferred translation).

[1] Sabatino Moscati.
The Face of the Ancient Orient: Near Eastern Civilization in Pre-Classical Times.
Mineola, N. Y.: Dover Publications, 2001.
(English translation originally published by Routledge & Kegan Paul and Vallentine, Mitchell & Co., 1960. Original Italian edition published as Il Profilo Dell' Oriente Mediterraneo by Edizioni Radio Italiani.)

A short introduction to the civilizations of the ancient Near East: Sumerian, Babylonian, Assyrian, Egyptian, Hittite, Hurrian, Canaanite (i.e., non-Aramaean peoples: Amorites, Moabites, Ammonites, Hebrews), Aramaean, Israeli, Persian.


[2] Joan Mellen.
Seven Samurai.
London: British Film Institute, 2002.
(series: BFI Film Classics)
Seven Samurai at the publisher's web site.
Seven Samurai at the American distributor's web site (University of California Press).
(Joan Mellen, professor of English and Creative Writing, writes much better than Phillip Drummond. Some evidence that Drummond's volume in the BFI Film Classics series is an anomaly in its poor writing. The difference between traditional Literature scholars and the Film Studies crew shows.)

Some links related to the film Seven Samurai or Shichinin no samurai (1954):

The Film:
(1) IMDB.
(2) Rotten Tomatoes.
(3) Roger Ebert's Great Movies.
(4) Amazon.com.
(5) Japan on Film: Seven Samurai.
(6) Criterion Collection DVD edition, essay.
(7) Bright Lights Film Journal review by Garry Morris.
(8) Sight and Sound Directors Top Ten Poll 2002 (Seven Samurai in a three-way tie for #9 among Directors).
(9) Sight and Sound Critics Top Ten Poll 2002 (Seven Samurai ranked #11 among Critics).

Akira Kurosawa (Director):
(1) Thomas Hibbs.
(2) Senses of Cinema essay by Dan Harper.
(3) Strictly Film School essays by Acquarello.
(4) BFI (several links).
(5) Dan Kim excellent web site.
(6) Akira Kurosawa Database.
(7) Akira Kurosawa Home Page.
(8) Asian Film Connections (links to some Essays).
(9) Great Performances, PBS.
(10) Peter Grilli essay.
(11) Asa Fitch (excellent student's web page).
(12) Sight and Sound Directors' Top Ten Directors Poll 2002 (#3).
(13) Sight and Sound Critic's Top Ten Directors Poll 2002 (#6).

Toshiro Mifune (Actor: Kikuchiyo):
(1) IMDB.
(2) BFI.
(3) Toshiro Mifune by Ramona Boersma (excellent web site).

Takashi Shimura (Actor: Kambei Shimada):
(1) IMDB.

I like what Thomas Hibbs writes in the article linked to above:
"What Eliot said of poetry is true of film: It can communicate before it is understood."
Perhaps an overgeneralization, but it seems to me that Film has become the Poetry of our times.

Susan Rutter's excellent comment:
"You say in your blog film is the modern poetry. In art history circles the comparison goes beyond that. They say, and I completely agree, film is the only modern mainstream artistic expression that really counts, the modern version of painting during the Renaissance in Europe. We have our masters and our genres and our styles, just like painting from, say, 1400 through the invention of photography. And just as painting was viewed by all classes and masses in Renaissance, Enlightenment and Industrial Europe, so film is seen by everyone in Western societies. Used for ideological indoctrination and as pure aesthetics, painting and film are/were sociological events packed with cultural information about values."

Other Books:
(1) The Films of Akira Kurosawa by Donald Richie, with additional material by Joan Mellen.
(2) The Warriors' Camera: The Cinema of Akira Kurosawa by Steven Price.
(3) The Emperor and the Wolf: The Lives and Films of Akira Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune by Stuart Galbraith.
(4) A Hundred Years of Japanese Film by Donald Richie.
(5) Something Like An Autobiography by Akira Kurosawa.

Claremont Review of Books, Fall 2003, Volume III, Number 4.

Fred Anderson.
Crucible of War: The Seven Years' War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754-1766.
New York: Vintage Books, 2001 (originally published by Alfred A. Knopf, 2000).

The cultural and political differences between Britain and its North American colonies, which defined the War for American Independence, first became prominant during the French and Indian War and its aftermath. This book provides essential background information for the War for American Independence.

The author's Preface implies that this book places the American Revolution or War for American Independence (1775-1783) - better understood as a civil war within the British Empire - in a broader geopolitical context than Americans commonly understand it: as a sequela to British success in the Seven Years' War (European continental warfare: 1756-1763), which was precipitated by the conflict in British North America (major warfare in North America: 1754-1761) called the French and Indian War. The first approximate half of the book focuses mainly on military events in North America along with discussion of British government actions and motivations. The second half deals with the war's aftermath, particularly regarding British policies towards its North American Atlantic sea-board colonies, and the Americans' new sense of themselves and their place in the British Empire, especially in light of their recent close experience with the Brtish during the French and Indian War.

(Warning: The maps in the paperback edition require a magnifying glass to read. Read the hardcover edition if possible.)