5 ms·

I like Devereaux's take on the Spartans, but I see people repeating it every time the Spartan's are mentioned. I worry that I'm only getting to see two perspect

I like Devereaux's take on the Spartans, but I see people repeating it every time the Spartan's are mentioned. I worry that I'm only getting to see two perspectives on the Spartans: the naive glorification and Devereaux's takedown. Does anyone know of a good third source? Ideally another historian who would still be interesting to an amateur.

bluGill 2y ago
There are lots of sources, the article briefly covers many of them. They all share in common the fact that there is very little real information and so we can only read behind the lines at trying to find the truth. Devereaux is one of the few takes that admit to this problem, and for that alone is makes him my favored source. It quickly becomes clear if you read these that most takes on the Spartans are using the lack of information to read some favored angle. I'd be interested in another historian's take if different. I'm reasonably confident that they will be similar to Devereaux's take though, so I'm not looking.
DylanSp 2y ago
Take a look at the links and sources mentioned in his retrospective on the Sparta series: https://acoup.blog/2022/08/19/collections-this-isnt-sparta-retrospective/ https://acoup.blog/2022/08/19/collections-this-isnt-sparta-r.... Devereaux mentions some different approaches that modern historians take towards Sparta, particularly Steven Hodkinson's arguments that Sparta was more typical and less unusual compared to the other Greek poleis; following up on that work would probably be a useful counterpoint.
gadders 2y ago
If you want a historian that tends right rather than left like Devereaux, you could try Victor David Hanson. https://newcriterion.com/article/the-spartan-way-of-war/ https://newcriterion.com/article/the-spartan-way-of-war/ I don't think he is that adrift from Devereaux in his assessment of Sparta though.
- lolinder 2y ago
  > tends right rather than left like Devereaux I just feel the need to clarify that Devereaux is barely left-leaning. He keeps his politics pretty firmly out of his blogs for the most part, but when he does break out politics he's pretty clearly very close to the center relative to what we think today when we hear "left" and "right". As a historian (and, I believe, a good one), he seems to see the complexity of the current partisan dynamic too clearly to dogmatically pick a side.
  - gadders 2y ago
    That is very much not true. He wrote a hysterical philippic [1] just before the election calling Trump a fascist, which was written with about the same level of historical rigour as the Paul Krugman's rants exhibit for economics. You may argue that "Trump is a fascist" and you are entitled to that view, but that is not a centrist view, and is at odds with the majority of the US population, which voted for Trump. [1] https://acoup.blog/2024/10/25/new-acquisitions-1933-and-the-definition-of-fascism/ https://acoup.blog/2024/10/25/new-acquisitions-1933-and-the-...
    - swasheck 2y ago
      generally speaking he is decidedly centrist in his historical perspectives. it is uncritical to paint in broad strokes over a post, or two, in which he uses historical analysis to communicate a progressive perspective that warns against the danger(s) of an incoming administration
      - gadders 2y ago
        >>it is uncritical to paint in broad strokes over a post, or two, in which he uses historical analysis to communicate a progressive perspective There have only been a couple of posts where he discusses current politics, so that is all I have to go on. However, from reading his material, I think it would be fair to say he is against the "great man of history" theory, which tends to be a more left wing interpretation.
    - 2y ago
bee_rider 2y ago
I do sometimes think this about the info I get from his blog. He’s a fun writer and so I think, like lots of us, I probably over-value his takedowns. But, we should keep in mind the stakes, right? He provides a compelling argument that, actually, Sparta was not even that great at marshaling up a bunch of guys with big spears. That’s a nice beachhead in the conversation as to whether Spartan values are valuable, if you think they aren’t. But even if he is wrong, what does it mean? Big groups of guys with spears don’t win wars nowadays anyway so even if we think a value system’s ability to win wars is very important (pretty questionable!) spartan-ism is obviously much worse than something like liberal democracy, which produced nukes and stealth bombers which could kill, like, endless numbers of spear guys (however good they are at lining up).
- goatlover 2y ago
  What is the equivalent of Spartans in the modern world? The Soviet Union also produced nukes and bombers.
  - nradov 2y ago
    Maybe it's us? The USA has a reputation as a military superpower and yet in most of the conflicts after WWII we have actually lost (or at best tied).
    - yellowapple 2y ago
      It's a bit more complicated than that. Militarily, we rather consistently win (or at least not lose). The trouble is that the new regimes we establish end up reliant on us for defense, and unless we're willing to be said regimes' military for decades on end (like we were with Japan) or at the very least maintain permanent military presences (like we did with West Germany until its reunification with East Germany, and like we're still doing with South Korea and Japan), those regimes prove incapable of defending themselves from the adversaries we defeated to establish said regimes in the first place. That's exactly what happened with South Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan: as soon as we pulled out "victorious", the newly-established allied regime was unable to defend itself against North Vietnam / ISIS / the Taliban (respectively).

bluGill 2y ago

There are lots of sources, the article briefly covers many of them. They all share in common the fact that there is very little real information and so we can only read behind the lines at trying to find the truth. Devereaux is one of the few takes that admit to this problem, and for that alone is makes him my favored source. It quickly becomes clear if you read these that most takes on the Spartans are using the lack of information to read some favored angle. I'd be interested in another historian's take if different. I'm reasonably confident that they will be similar to Devereaux's take though, so I'm not looking.

DylanSp 2y ago

Take a look at the links and sources mentioned in his retrospective on the Sparta series: https://acoup.blog/2022/08/19/collections-this-isnt-sparta-retrospective/ https://acoup.blog/2022/08/19/collections-this-isnt-sparta-r.... Devereaux mentions some different approaches that modern historians take towards Sparta, particularly Steven Hodkinson's arguments that Sparta was more typical and less unusual compared to the other Greek poleis; following up on that work would probably be a useful counterpoint.

gadders 2y ago

If you want a historian that tends right rather than left like Devereaux, you could try Victor David Hanson. https://newcriterion.com/article/the-spartan-way-of-war/ https://newcriterion.com/article/the-spartan-way-of-war/ I don't think he is that adrift from Devereaux in his assessment of Sparta though.

lolinder 2y ago
> tends right rather than left like Devereaux I just feel the need to clarify that Devereaux is barely left-leaning. He keeps his politics pretty firmly out of his blogs for the most part, but when he does break out politics he's pretty clearly very close to the center relative to what we think today when we hear "left" and "right". As a historian (and, I believe, a good one), he seems to see the complexity of the current partisan dynamic too clearly to dogmatically pick a side.
- gadders 2y ago
  That is very much not true. He wrote a hysterical philippic [1] just before the election calling Trump a fascist, which was written with about the same level of historical rigour as the Paul Krugman's rants exhibit for economics. You may argue that "Trump is a fascist" and you are entitled to that view, but that is not a centrist view, and is at odds with the majority of the US population, which voted for Trump. [1] https://acoup.blog/2024/10/25/new-acquisitions-1933-and-the-definition-of-fascism/ https://acoup.blog/2024/10/25/new-acquisitions-1933-and-the-...
  - swasheck 2y ago
    generally speaking he is decidedly centrist in his historical perspectives. it is uncritical to paint in broad strokes over a post, or two, in which he uses historical analysis to communicate a progressive perspective that warns against the danger(s) of an incoming administration
    - gadders 2y ago
      >>it is uncritical to paint in broad strokes over a post, or two, in which he uses historical analysis to communicate a progressive perspective There have only been a couple of posts where he discusses current politics, so that is all I have to go on. However, from reading his material, I think it would be fair to say he is against the "great man of history" theory, which tends to be a more left wing interpretation.
  - 2y ago

bee_rider 2y ago

I do sometimes think this about the info I get from his blog. He’s a fun writer and so I think, like lots of us, I probably over-value his takedowns. But, we should keep in mind the stakes, right? He provides a compelling argument that, actually, Sparta was not even that great at marshaling up a bunch of guys with big spears. That’s a nice beachhead in the conversation as to whether Spartan values are valuable, if you think they aren’t. But even if he is wrong, what does it mean? Big groups of guys with spears don’t win wars nowadays anyway so even if we think a value system’s ability to win wars is very important (pretty questionable!) spartan-ism is obviously much worse than something like liberal democracy, which produced nukes and stealth bombers which could kill, like, endless numbers of spear guys (however good they are at lining up).

goatlover 2y ago
What is the equivalent of Spartans in the modern world? The Soviet Union also produced nukes and bombers.
- nradov 2y ago
  Maybe it's us? The USA has a reputation as a military superpower and yet in most of the conflicts after WWII we have actually lost (or at best tied).
  - yellowapple 2y ago
    It's a bit more complicated than that. Militarily, we rather consistently win (or at least not lose). The trouble is that the new regimes we establish end up reliant on us for defense, and unless we're willing to be said regimes' military for decades on end (like we were with Japan) or at the very least maintain permanent military presences (like we did with West Germany until its reunification with East Germany, and like we're still doing with South Korea and Japan), those regimes prove incapable of defending themselves from the adversaries we defeated to establish said regimes in the first place. That's exactly what happened with South Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan: as soon as we pulled out "victorious", the newly-established allied regime was unable to defend itself against North Vietnam / ISIS / the Taliban (respectively).