An okay work of history, focusing on the annihilatory wars between Macedon and Thebes, Rome and Carthage, the Byzantine and Ottoman Empires, and Spain and the Aztecs. In each section Hanson spends some time (somewhat repetitiously) detailing the historical context for the total destruction of the losers, with a little coda on the subsequent rebuilding or continued use of the conquered city by the conquerors. It's reasonably interesting, if lacking in the sweeping takeaways for contemporary life that the jacket copy promises.

However, one big thing jumped out to me that undermined the whole experience: during the section on the Punic Wars, Hanson straight-facedly cites the Caledonian leader Calgacus as the source of the famous "they make a desert and call it peace" quote. The thing is, I happen to know a little about that, specifically that the speech attributed to Calgacus is generally agreed by historians to probably be an outright invention of the historian Tacitus (in the way that anybody would question long verbatim quotations in histories of that era written by people who weren't there). Hanson's point would be equally served by discussing the questionable provenance of the quote (that opinion being held by a Roman historian is arguably more consequential than the opinion of one of Rome's supposed foes), but he makes no mention of it. I hate when I happen to find scholarly errors in the parts of history books that I have some familiarity with, because then I have to question the trustworthiness of all of the parts that are new to me.

This is an in depth look on how even the greatest empires eventually meet their doom. A frank lo0k at what led to the eventual downfall of each empire, and a commentary on if it's possible to avoid said fallacies in future empires or countries.

The author is a deeply knowledgeable historian and a skillful writer. Dr. Hanson takes you through, step by step, the collapse of several ancient empires, ending with the Aztecs, who were routed by a small band of Spanish conquistadors who crushed the Aztecs during the 1500s. If you like reading history, you will love this book.

The End of Everything by Victor Davis Hanson was received directly from the publisher and I chose to review it. I am very familiar with this author from guest commentaries on television, I had never read one of his books. This book is an important history lesson in that describing, in great detail, wars and battles that cost the winner, their actual country and well-being. The book's chapters get kind of dry and while very detailed, I found myself skimming at times. This book is recommended for everyone to read as history not learned is doomed to be repeated, and this book shows that it gets repeated over and over again.

4 Stars

True defeat in modern warfare has not been seen. The total defeat of one’s enemy to the point where they cannot regroup or they are deterred to counterattack is a concept from antiquity and the medieval world. One does not need to look too far back to see that this point is correct ( resurgence of the Taliban and ISIS for instance). It takes a classical scholar to point this out and Victor Davis Hanson is the one for this job. Taking his knowledge of the classical world, he has reintroduced to the reader what defeat can look like especially when conflicts are becoming more large scale and old adversaries build themselves up again.

I'm trying to read more nonfiction across the political spectrum, and I thought Hanson, famously an avid Trump supporter, would be a good place to start. Unfortunately, this book was incredibly boring and I could not get through it.

In Victor David Hanson's "The End of Everything: How Wars Descend Into Annihilation" (I am working from an ARC graciously provided by the publisher, Basic Books), the noted historian examines the fate of four cities from our cultural past: Classical Thebes, Carthage, Constantinople, and finally Aztec Tenochtitlan. In four fascinating chapters he examines each of these in some detail focusing on the immediate events which precipitated the collapse of the Culture and Civilization which each centered and the cataclysmic nature of their respective ends. His thesis, most clearly revealed in his epilogue, is that there are lessons that we should be aware of in how things came to pass, often through naivety, hubris, and misunderstanding as well as a deliberate and fanciful dependence on real or presumed allies exacerbated by a willful refusal to recognize the power and intent of their enemies (underestimation of both capabilities and intentions). The respective tales are written with the verve and mastery of his research materials characteristic of this distinguished historian, and they. make, collectively, for a sad tale of human folly. There is a lot to learn from Hanson's treatise with immediate applications in our increasingly violent world; there are clear implications for the Ukraine and Israel; and we ignore them at great peril. This book belongs in most collections.