Carnage And Culture Summary

He looks at the army and warfare in terms of men, technology, valour and victory (Hanson 68). He also discusses the west?s militarism tradition. A tradition supports mobilization of citizen soldiers and animating them with principles of collective endeavor. According to Victor Hanson, it is the west?s tradition that has helped them develop and maintain a strong military power. Hanson struggles to recreate nine ?landmark? episodes of combat through which the west gradually started their rise to the top. In this approach, three classical period episodes are depicted to show the situational onset of the rise of the west as Salamis, Cannae and Gaugamela. Hanson depicts these battles to have manifested particular western lethal military machinery. Moreover, the chronology is given a vivid progression when the author depicts that gradual spread of the western style war machinery through three additional battles as Tenochtitlan, Poitiers and Lepanto. The author eventually examined the gradual mechanism of battle spread from Europe into the west. The distinct military style of invincibility is further traced through Midway, Rorke?s Drift and Tet.

As Americans, living in a egotistical and self centered society, we often think that we are the best, the top 1 percent in every aspect. However, When compared to other countries of the world, America is ranked 14th in education, 44th in health care efficiency, and 101th in peace. But it ranks first in incarceration, 2nd in ignorance, and 3rd in global competitiveness. One can see how the rankings that America is top in are those that promote violence in one way or another. In the book Violence and Culture: A Cross-Cultural and Interdisciplinary Approach by Jack David Eller, the author discusses violence in American society in one of his chapters. In this chapter, he mentions some social characteristics that represents and plays a role in

Rodney Stark, in the book How the West Won, attempts to tell the story of history in a fresh and new way. He believes that history has been corrupted by political correctness. He believes that western civilization is unique and has created itself. Stark believes that we need to stop credited all of the other cultures for modern culture. We credit other cultures because we are trying to seem fair, and we do not want to seem egocentric. Human freedom is one of his main points to prove his thesis. He states that western civilization is the only culture to create human freedom.

First, I agree that the Western civilization has a clear lineage that focuses on the majority of the following attributes: competition/innovation, science, property rights, personal freedoms, and a free-market economy. Ferguson (2014) points out that competition, property oriented government and science are some of the unique attributes that enabled the West rise to power. As a result of competition, the western people became more innovative and business-oriented, thus, making them aggressive in areas

The Book, My Bloody Life, the Making of a Latin King by Reymundo Sanchez is sad, horrifying and eye opening. Consequently, it makes a person think about the role of society and the social reasons or theories that can explain involvement in gangs or gang activity. I think there may be several theories used to explain involvement in gangs, but I think the best theory used to explain why there are gangs is the “control or social bond theory”. Sanchez illustrates several instances of this theory throughout his book. I will discuss some of these instances and show how they are an example of control/social bond theory.

In a reading of the book, one finds no particular thesis, the authors are not out to make a case of right or wrong; but rather, are looking to provide a historically accurate account of what actually transpired at each of the occupations. Smith and Warrior do this by obtaining perspective from many who were on the ground at the

Stark’s title: “How the west Won, The Neglected Story of Triumph of Modernity”, could have easily changed it to: How the West Won, Like it or Not; Explaining the Truth One Culture at a Time. The boldness of Mr. stark is superb, leaving no rock unturned; going into the New World. Addressing issues how the New World inappropriately commandeered the European ways of slavery, by way of human trafficking from the Africans, (Stark points out that even the African tribal leaders and tribes capturing of other tribes were in it as well for profit). Furthermore, Mr. Stark points out no one listened to the nudges of Pope Eugene the IV, not to have slavery in the new world. It is good in history not to have politically correctness, not agreeing that it was right to do, but that Mr. Stark wrote it for the historical value, in addition to: how it fits into the Western Civilization genre.

Brian Levack, Edward Muir, Micheal Maas, Meredith Veldman. The West: Encounters and Transformations, Consise Edition. Pearson: Upper Saddle River, 2009. Print

Technology, Discipline, Unique System of War Finance, Highly Aggressive Military Tradition, and Emphasis on Innovation are the five principles of the Western Way of War. Having a unique system of war finance, emphasis on innovation, and discipline are the aspects of the western way of war that describe warfare in the age of Napoleon (1789-1815).

The western way of war consists of five foundations that have shaped a significant amount of military cultures; the foundations are superior technology, discipline, a finance system, innovation, and military tradition. Perhaps people believe that discipline is not one of the most important foundations of the western way of war, since people tend to emphasize technology. However, discipline is the key to maximizing the other four foundations before and during conflict. Historian Geoffrey Parker agrees that technology can give a military advantage, but it is not sufficient without superior discipline. That is because discipline consists of the ability of armies to act within battle plans even when not supervised, obey orders, exercise loyalty, and restrain their fears when faced with danger. Discipline as a western way of war has influenced military cultures from the Roman Empire to today’s militaries. Discipline shaped military cultures by how they prepared for war, effectively giving them the ability to act during combat and expanding commander’s operational reach, thus aiding in conflicts throughout history and increasing the likelihood of defeating the adversary.

In Samuel P. Huntington’s article “The West: Unique, Not Universal,” he addresses his audience with a very controversial question: Is Western Culture universal or unique? Huntington elaborately opens up this question with research and examples to explain and persuade readers that the West will never be a universal culture for all, but rather a unique culture that will be accepted by those who appreciate it. For decades now, historians and scholars have debated with one another to determine who is right and wrong. However, from a handful of articles from different scholars, Samuel Huntington’s statement that the West is unique rather than universal is supported and even further elaborated on by these particular sources. A common understanding between all the sources, that must be noted, is that a civilization’s culture is not comprised of material goods but rather their culmination of their religion(s), values, language(s) and traditions. While although there are scholars out their that negate the West is unique, a large amount of scholars still argue and strengthen Huntington’s argument that the West has unique and exclusive characteristics that make them distinctive and rare.

Western culture and policies have shaped the modern world, especially the Middle East, in many ways. Since the sixteenth century, the nations of Western civilization have been the driving wheels of modernization. Globalization is simply the spread of modern institutions and ideas from one high power to the wider world. Technological innovation and economic growth along with such concepts as democracy, individualism, and the rule of law administered by an impartial judiciary, set Western societies above and beyond any possible rival. Other cultures looked to the West as a model, a threat, or some combination of both. One country that was most successful in their confrontations with Western states was Japan, who incorporated Western

Huntington’s work influenced how the Western and American policymakers view the world. Clash of Civilization was an expansion from an article he published in Foreign Affairs journal. It incorporates a hybrid of nationalist, metahistorical, and realist elements. Huntington states that there is a weakness present in the four paradigms existing in the political world after the Cold War. He views the situation from the view of the West versus the rest of the world is the current system. Huntington regards this system as weak. He believes that the four paradigms are also incompatible with each other. Huntington explains the characteristics of a civilization as the broadest cultural entity.

Political scientist Samuel Huntington in his article, ‘The Clash of Civilisations ', argues a new concept predicting the primary origin of future conflicts. His hypothesis follows the idea that the cause of conflict will fundamentally begin due to the clash of people 's cultural and religious identities. Written from a post cold war perspective in 1993, Huntington discusses how future wars will follow a similar pattern. He focuses especially on the impact of the ‘dominant civilization ' of the West against the world 's contrasting civilizations. Huntington 's primary focus of the West as a dominating force against the rest is one critique of his argument. In addition, Huntington 's definition of a civilization is also very open-ended and takes an idealistic approach to what a civilization is. His single-minded hypothesis often ignores evidence of past conflicts and takes a very black and white approach to ‘us versus them '. However, ignorance fueled acts towards different cultures have caused conflicts, and Huntington does hold merit in terms of conflict being caused by clashing cultures in his argument.

In the book Critique of Violence ,author Walter describes Violence as "The intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community, which either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, male development, or deprivation .The violence that is portrayed in the media has been debated for decades ,and it has rose a question about how does it influence the youth?. From movies to video games society has been accustom to seeing violence in their everyday entertainment. Since children are easy to be influence by their environment, it is safe to say that violence in the media can and will contribute to violent behavior.