The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire: From the First Century CE to the Third, Revised and Updated Edition

Mr. Luttwak does a magnificent job describing the defensive strategy of the Roman Empire. Despite some controversy about the book (Mr. Luttwak is not a Roman historian and this irks some people), his book is very well researched and superbly written. The maps, charts and drawings are also a help. Mr. Luttwak breaks Roman defensive strategy into three eras (starting with Augustus and ending with Constantine the first) and accurately describes the working of each. Mr. Luttwak devotes a fair amount of his work to "The Eastern Front"(to borrow an expression used by Mr. Luttwak in his book), the Parthians and the Sassanids. I personally find this very satisfying; most books (at least the ones I have read) about the Roman military spend the overwhelming majority of their pages on the Rhine and Danube rivers. The modicum amount of books that even mention the eastern provinces are almost exclusively about the first Roman-Jewish war. So why do I say that the title is slightly misleading? The reason is because Mr. Luttwak says virtually nothing about offensive operations conducted during the time period. For example, Mr. Luttwak states about Trajan's Dacian wars "...in the wake of Trajan's conquest of Dacia (and the establishment of what was perhaps the most scientific of all scientific frontiers) resulted in the consolidation of the Danube armies..." pg.86. No mention is given to how Trajan's army operated within Dacia (logistics, battles, Dacian tactics and weapons, etc). Same thing also applies to Claudius's invasion of Britain in 43 AD. Certainly offensive operations should be included within the scope grand strategy. Perhaps, a better title for the book would be The Grand Defensive Strategy of the Roman Empire. Do not be perplexed by the shortness of the book (255 pages), for it's Mr. Luffwak's PhD dissertation. In an interview, Mr. Luttwak stated, "The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire from the First Century AD to the Third, is merely my Johns Hopkins PhD dissertation." In conclusion, whether you agree with Mr. Luttwak's assertions or not, the book is well researched and clearly states what he believes. Therefore, I would recommend the book to anyone interested in defensive Roman military strategy.

Brilliant book for anyone interested in the military strategy of Rome.

The dilligent study to reveal reasons and economics behind the Roman war machine, and Roman politics. This study elucidates more about rise and decline of great empires than any other book I know about Rome.Instead of focusing on narrow events, author compares numbers and tries to infer economics of Roman offense and defense. This in turn reveals reason behind many puzzling changes in the Roman society, and driving factors at all stages of its existence.

The book is very wonkish, which means that if you are a real nerd, this is perfect. If you are more interested in personalities and who-knifed-who, this is not your book.The book has excellent maps. It also has excellent "staff college" diagrams. That is, if one has a certain front to defend against attacks of all types (from cattle raids to major invasions), how does one use the features of the landscape to build a defensive system, with limited troops? Luttwak goes through the staff-college analysis and provide illustrative diagrams, mostly theoretical ones but also some which are actual maps of actual Roman deployments.In several places, he provides lists of how many legions were in each province, so there are 4-5 periods of time when you can see the high-level deployment scheme.He is also very interesting on the system of having "client states," "friends of Rome," and buffer states. It is not necessary, and sometimes not advisable, to conquer an area outright if you can designate a local ruler to act as puppet. The puppet ruler is a local who knows the people, knows who is important, and can control the area's internal affairs much better than a parachuted-in Roman official could. Once Rome became a hegemon, its neighbors would often do as they were told because they knew that Rome could march in whenever it became displeased.The reservations? Well, the very name of the book is a simplification because there is no evidence that the Romans sat down and developed a grant strategy. They never had a "general staff" or a "staff college." At times the defenses were designed (when an area was first taken over, or when an emperor reviewed the situation as Hadrian did.) Most of the time, the system remained as it had already been set up, and sometimes evolved as the provincial commander made adjustments.Also, he talks about the placement of legions and when they did (or did not) constitute a mobile reaction force. I find most of that discussion to be moot. They generally placed legions well forward because that is where they might do some good. Movement was agonizingly slow, so the focus should be on limiting the distances to be marched. If an enemy came in thru a gap, then the nearest legions would move sideways to either seal the gap or attack the invading force. The permanent deployment was very far forward, with the best lateral roads they could build. If the threat was too large for nearby forces, they would take whatever legions were nearest, even if that meant a march from Hispania to the Rhine; therefore they built long roads from the interior to the frontier.

Bought for a gift.

If you are remotely interesting in this time period at all, Buy this Book! This book gives a macro view of what was going on behind the micro history that is the usual fare. By providing understanding of the broad sweep of forces influencing Rome and the Roman response, the micro history becomes much more understandable. One realizes how dynamic and intelligent the Romans were in the grand strategy that preserved their civilization from destruction for so long.

The book explains high-level strategy in a very understandable, common-sense way and enlightens the reader as to how the empire's frontiers were considered and managed by the empire over different time periods and as conditions around them changed. Gives one a good perspective as to how they were able to maintain such an expansive empire using very limited technology and manpower for so long. Great book, but not for someone without good knowledge of Roman History before-hand.

Dry, but informative. A lot of detailed information about the Roman war machine and how it worked.

Una analisi puntuale, precisa e documentata della macchina geo-politica romana - un libro difficile da giudicare in quanto tratta l'argomento in modo piuttosto distaccato e analitico.Non pensavo potesse essere il mio genere di libro, eppure mi sono ritrovato a divorarne le pagine una dopo l'altra perché l'autore, con il suo equilibrio e la sua apparente oggettività, riesce a mio avviso a scardinare una serie di giudizi storici frettolosi riguardo all'evoluzione e alla fine dell'impero romano in termini di proiezione di forza militare ma soprattutto di potere imperiale (intangibile) al di la delle frontiere.Ho trovato gli schemi esplicativi e le mappe utili per fissare meglio i concetti esposti.Riguardo al libro in se, la qualità' di questa edizione e' più che buona considerando che si tratta di una ristampa in copertina flessibile.

There has been a lot of criticism of this book over the last twenty years. The general consensus at present is that there was never any rational plan for the expansion of Roman power nor any concept of a limit to expansion. Luttwak is blamed for the view that it had one, which is unfair since that was never his thesis. It was the supposition behind all of his arguments but only because it was the unquestioned assumption of 200 years of scholars. His goal was to outline the reason why Roman expansion ended where it did and, more importantly, to outline the changes in their frontier strategy over the centuries. This latter has received criticism too, though not nearly as much as the former.Grand strategy is the way that the state utilizes all means available to it, including diplomatic, political, economic, and military ones, in pursuit of a national goal. Knowing this definition would have helped a lot of the critics who have rejected the notion of Roman grand strategy due to this book. It doesn't mean that Rome had a consistent plan on where to expand to and when to stop, it means that they had a military policy. Luttwak's specific outline of military policy is another question. He divides Roman frontier policy into three stages. The first stage lasts from Augustus to Nero and features the use of client kings to maintain a buffer zone between Rome and their neighbors. The second covers the Flavians through the third century crisis and involves the gradual replacement of client kings and the development of static defenses. The third system began with Diocletian and Constantine and was a defense-in-depth that relied on slowing the enemy down after they entered Roman territory. All of these generalizations can (and have) been picked apart, but apart from the third one they are recognizing general trends. And even the third one is noting a change even if it doesn't properly identify the cause.Now I quite like this book. I read it after I read the criticisms of it and I came in expecting a crummy amateur account that made a whole string of unsubstantiated accusations. What I found instead was a well-reasoned book that tried to explain the ways in which the border operated in a rational manner. Sure, the rationalist explanations for why Roman expansion stopped where it did are pure guesswork and, despite his later accusations that people claiming this are advocating "the pseudo-science of Hausoferian geopolitics", seem impossible to be realized without accurate maps of the area in question. But this isn't the main point of his book. It instead outlines the broad patterns of Roman frontier policy, how they dealt with their neighbors, where they placed their troops, etc. The critics bash Luttwak because his book summed up years of research and did it so thoroughly that people forgot about all the previous literature on the subject.If you are going to read this book however, you should at least be aware of the critics. The two most important books are Benjamin Isaac's The Limits of Empire and C.R. Whittaker's Frontiers of the Roman Empire: A Social and Economic Study. Isaac too exception to the concept of an organized frontier in the east and in particular tore apart Luttwak's defense-in-depth. The defense-in-depth idea seems crushed beyond repair since the east was Luttwak's ideal model for it, but some of Isaac's other conclusions can be open to question, such as his talk of the limes defenses being fortified roads rather than roads connecting forts. Whittaker's book is a look at the social/economic history of the frontiers and has no place for military explanations or designs from the center. The mere idea of a defined border is anathema to him and he works quite hard to muddy the water.

Not quite dated yet, but getting there. Still a magnificent achievement of clear minded thinking and scholarship.

If you interested in understanding the long term evolution of the military position of the early Roman Empire this is your book

I'd received my item on 8 December.It was rather late than I expected.However, it was rightly delivered, so I am satisfied with it.