Early Historians
The documentation of military history begins with the confrontation between Sumer (current Iraq) and Elam (current Iran) c. 2700 BCE near the modern Basra, and includes such enduring records as the Hebrew Bible. Other prominent records in military history are the Trojan War in Homer's Iliad (though its historicity has been challenged), The Histories by Herodotus (484 BC - 425 BC) who is often called the "father of history". Next was Thucydides whose impartiality, despite being an Athenian, allowed him to take advantage of his exile to research the war from different perspectives by carefully examining documents and interviewing eyewitnesses. An approach centered around the analysis of a leader was taken by Xenophon (430 BC - 355 BC) in Anabasis, recording the expedition of Cyrus the Younger into Anatolia.
The records of the Roman Julius Caesar (100 BC - 44 BC) enable a comparative approach for campaigns such as Commentarii de Bello Gallico and Commentarii de Bello Civili.
Read more about this topic: Military History
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or historians:
“He had long before indulged most unfavourable sentiments of our fellow-subjects in America. For, as early as 1769,... he had said of them, “Sir, they are a race of convicts, and ought to be thankful for any thing we allow them short of hanging.””
—Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)
“Nations without a past are contradictions in terms. What makes a nation is the past, what justifies one nation against others is the past, and historians are the people who produce it.”
—Eric J. Hobsbawm (b. 1917)