Controversy about scholarship is a staple of academic life. Edward Luttwak’s The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire is a wonderful example of bickering among authorities.
This book, in its original form (1976; revised 2016 ), was the first to examine how the Roman empire went about defending its borders in light of modern strategic thought. It rejected the old idea that the Romans attempted to create impermeable frontiers and showed, based on archeological findings, that the frontier posts and limes in Africa and Britain were simply “early warning systems.” In most of Europe and the Near East the Empire relied on client states. Additionally, the famous Roman Roads were strategic for moving legions to threatened locations.
The author was a veteran of the WWIII planning community (Rand Corp, Hoover Institute, et al.) with an interest in ancient history and not a classicist or an historian. His thesis is still widely contested but certainly has the ring of truth. Read some of the reviews and discussions and see what you think!
The following are reviews and discussions of the book. The Psmith review is the most detailed, and brings in information about the Cold War and modern-day Ukraine. The Classics of Strategy site is a shorter review. Both of these are very sympathetic to Luttwak’s ideas. Neither of these reviews were written by classicists. They are easy to read and do a great job of giving the salient points.
The next, by classicists, are not as complimentary; as Michael Taylor notes in his review of a different book in The Bryn Mawr Classical Review.
The scholarly pendulum swings between the maximalist view, advocated by Luttwak, that the Romans engaged in reasoned and centralized grand strategy, to the minimalist belief that the Romans were so misinformed about geography and ethnography that any sort of reasoned grand strategy was impossible.
The following review is somewhat condescending but does go into detail about the theory Luttwak put forth: Review of Edward N, Luttwak, The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire. From the First Century CE to the Third. Revised and updated edition (Baltimore 2016), pp. xx, 276, in: The Classical Review 67.2 (2017) 580-581 by Philip Rance
The next 2 are completely unsympathetic and actually rather nasty!
- The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire: From the First Century A.D. to the Third Edward N. Luttwak Review by: C. M. Wells. The American Journal of Philology Vol. 99, No. 4 (Winter, 1978), pp. 527-529 (3 pages). (You can download this via CANE’s subscription to JSTOR.)
- The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire: From the First Century A.D. to the Third Edward N. Luttwak Review by: Erich S. Gruen. The Journal of Interdisciplinary History Vol. 8, No. 3 (Winter, 1978), pp. 563-566 (4 pages)
Here is another review, by J C Mann: Power, Force and the Frontiers of the Empire. This can also be read via CANE’s subscription to JSTOR.
By: Daniel A. Bronstein, Professor Emeritus, Michigan State University