Rating: 
Summary: Varus, Varus, give me back my legions!!
Review: Roman military history is full of crushing defeats--Allia, Cannae, and Carrhae, to name a few. None of these battles 'stopped' Rome. Neither did the Teutoberger Forest. Although it broke Augustus' spirit, succeeding emperors were undeterred and expansionist. Rome's failure to conquer Germany was due, not to the military acumen of Arminius, but to three things:
1. The decentralized body politic of Germania. The U.S. confronts a similar problem today in the Iraqi insurgency. It's hard to pacify a country which has no central government to surrender and tell its citizens to stop fighting. Rome solved a similar decentralization problem in Spain in the wake of the Second Punic War, but Spain did not present the next problem.
2. The complete unsuitability of the legionary system for waging war in heavy forests. Close order heavy infantry needs lots of level, wide open spaces to maneuver. Think of the caricature of the Minutemen firing from behind trees on the Redcoats marching by with parade ground precision.
3. There is just so much area that a pretechnological government can control, and Rome was near its limit.
Notwithstanding the flawed premise of the book, Wells gives an interesting account. He starts with the biographies of the three protagonists: Augustus, the aging Emperor who wandered the halls of his palace saying 'Varus, Varus, give me back my legions'; Varus, the doomed general who paid the price for the dual sins of overtrust in a treacherous German 'ally' and underestimation of the tactical and logistical problems of marching three legions through such inhospitable terrain; and Arminius, the duplicitous Roman auxiliary soldier who forsook his hard-won Roman citizenship to betray his mentor, Varus. During Rome's long history, it confronted many admirable war leaders: Pyrrhus, Hannibal, Massinissa, Jugurtha, Spartacus, Vercingetorix. Arminius is not one of them.
Wells next describes life on the fringes of Empire, and then gets down to the business of recounting the battle. He gives little credence to the written accounts of the battle, and concentrates on the archaeology of the battle. The general course of the battle may have gone as he describes, but it is implausible to think that it was over as quickly as Wells believes. The German light infantry would not have been able to bowl over seasoned, battle-hardened troops easily. Jugurtha twice caught Marius just as flat-footed as Arminius caught Varus, and Marius was able to fight his way through. Coincidentally, Marius was marching to winter quarters just as Varus was. The Romans should have been able to put up a stubborn enough resistance to draw the battle out to the three days reported in the written histories.
Rating: 
Summary: A mystery how this book ever got published
Review: Sometimes you read a book that clearly was written to make a quick buck. Give it a title that will hook people in and then a few hundred pages of padding. There is no doubt this book was written solely for this reason, a few quick bucks to the author and another title to add to his c.v.It took some willpower to finish this sorry excuse of a book. The author has little understanding of the history of the event and constantly makes glaring errors in his analysis that are frankly unacceptable for a purported expert on the subject. He theorises that contrary to the accepted account passed down from the classical period that the battle lasted three days, the three legions and support troops were pretty much destroyed in an hour. He has little to no evidence to back up his theory and is also more than happy to ignore some sources available to us altogether. Admittedly some (if not all) of the classical sources that have survived are based on hearsay and were written a considerable amount of time after the event, but this is no excuse to ignore any source that blows your theory out of the water. As for Wells' theory; it is evidently clear he has absolutely no idea on how a battle would be fought and the description of the site post conflict is lamentably poor and owes more to an old western he watched in his childhood than any research carried out in the area. Wells has done a great disservice to his academic reputation with this book. Despite being a slim volume, there are very few pages devoted to the actual subject. Of the rest there is an infuriating amount of repetition, sometimes Wells does not even bother to disguise the fact he is trawling over the same information covered a chapter before. Quite simply, this book offers nothing of note to the Varian disaster. His argument is incredibly flawed and is totally devoid of any supporting evidence. The structure of book and the repetitive nature of the text is so appalling you have to wonder why the publisher would go ahead.
Rating: 
Summary: A Battle That Changed the World
Review: The Battle That Stopped Rome is a highly informative book the famous battle of Teutoburg Forest and also has a wealth of information about how the two adversaries lived and fought. Peters Wells provides fascinating data about the development of the Germanic tribes from more peaceful pursuits to their increasing militarization in the wake of the Roman conquest of Gaul. Readers also learn much about the daily lives of the Roman soldiers, their battle tactics and how Arminius was able to stage his ambush to the best advantage of the weakness of the Romans. We learn how the Romans underestimated the Germans, believing that they were inferior warriors, the many invasions from that of Julius Caesar to Nero Claudius Drusus and Tiberius and the idea that claiming the Germans had been conquered was propaganda when the Romans had never been able to engage them in a pitched battle. Mr. Wells provides an excellent background of the establishment of the Rhine frontier and its fortifications. Mr. Wells has produced a well-written, sometimes riveting book about the massacre. The opening chapter, titled Ambushed, is an interesting piece of writing where the author places himself at the battle, vividly describing the action. The book goes on to describe the finding of the battle site, the topography and the importance of the German victory to the Germans of later times, like Martin Luther who gave Arminius the name Hermann when he began his own struggle against the Pope. Arminius and Varus are are the subjects of an in-depth portraits and Mr. Wells provides an admirable description of the development of German villages, their communications and the change in the tribes to producing more weapons and their importance to the men fighting the Romans. The highlight of the book is the detailed description of the battle of the Teutoburg Forest: how the Romans came to be ambushed and how the battle was conducted. The details of the battle are broken down step by step from the Romans entering the trap, the springing of the attack, the inability of the Romans to fight to their advantage, the slaughter of the three legions and the aftermath of the battle when the Germans sanctified the site. Mr. Wells provides as complete a view of this turning point battle as is possible relating the archaeological findings to the events of the battle and how the Roman world changed due to the dramatic loss of the three legions.
This is a book aimed more for the general reader of history. There are chapters on life in Rome and a short biography of Augustus that provide thumbnail sketches. As someone whose reading is extensive in ancient history, I found this material a bit boring and skimmed through it. There are no footnotes but each chapter has a section of suggested further reading. My only complaint is that Mr. Wells quotes Tacitus and other authors but does not provide the citation in the works of those authors. I think if one is going to quote from Tacitus mention of where in the text the quote occurs is required. My complaint aside, this is a fascinating look at a battle that changed history and the lives of the participants.
Rating:
Summary: A Battle That Changed the World
Review: The Battle That Stopped Rome is a highly informative book the famous battle of Teutoburg Forest and also has a wealth of information about how the two adversaries lived and fought. Peters Wells provides fascinating data about the development of the Germanic tribes from more peaceful pursuits to their increasing militarization in the wake of the Roman conquest of Gaul. Readers also learn much about the daily lives of the Roman soldiers, their battle tactics and how Arminius was able to stage his ambush to the best advantage of the weakness of the Romans. We learn how the Romans underestimated the Germans, believing that they were inferior warriors, the many invasions from that of Julius Caesar to Nero Claudius Drusus and Tiberius and the idea that claiming the Germans had been conquered was propaganda when the Romans had never been able to engage them in a pitched battle. Mr. Wells provides an excellent background of the establishment of the Rhine frontier and its fortifications. Mr. Wells has produced a well-written, sometimes riveting book about the massacre. The opening chapter, titled Ambushed, is an interesting piece of writing where the author places himself at the battle, vividly describing the action. The book goes on to describe the finding of the battle site, the topography and the importance of the German victory to the Germans of later times, like Martin Luther who gave Arminius the name Hermann when he began his own struggle against the Pope. Arminius and Varus are are the subjects of an in-depth portraits and Mr. Wells provides an admirable description of the development of German villages, their communications and the change in the tribes to producing more weapons and their importance to the men fighting the Romans. The highlight of the book is the detailed description of the battle of the Teutoburg Forest: how the Romans came to be ambushed and how the battle was conducted. The details of the battle are broken down step by step from the Romans entering the trap, the springing of the attack, the inability of the Romans to fight to their advantage, the slaughter of the three legions and the aftermath of the battle when the Germans sanctified the site. Mr. Wells provides as complete a view of this turning point battle as is possible relating the archaeological findings to the events of the battle and how the Roman world changed due to the dramatic loss of the three legions.
This is a book aimed more for the general reader of history. There are chapters on life in Rome and a short biography of Augustus that provide thumbnail sketches. As someone whose reading is extensive in ancient history, I found this material a bit boring and skimmed through it. There are no footnotes but each chapter has a section of suggested further reading. My only complaint is that Mr. Wells quotes Tacitus and other authors but does not provide the citation in the works of those authors. I think if one is going to quote from Tacitus mention of where in the text the quote occurs is required. My complaint aside, this is a fascinating look at a battle that changed history and the lives of the participants.
Rating:
Summary: "Varus, give me back my Legions!"
Review: The complete annihilation of three Roman Legions by Germanic tribesmen under Arminius in A.D. 9 is one of the most important military events in human history. The defeat caused the shocked Romans to give up any plans of further expansion beyond the Rhine, establishing the Rhine as a political and cultural boundary between Latin and Germanic Europe that has existed to this day. It also demonstrated to the world and to the Romans themselves that Rome was not invincible, instilling in them a fear of invasion from the north that became a paranoia, and it provided later German peoples with a source for legend and a national hero in Arminius, corrupted to Hermann. Mr. Wells has retold the story of the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest in detail, using information gathered by the latest archaeological efforts as well as contemporary accounts written by the great historians of antiquity. Wells describes the relationships between the protagonists, relating how Arminius had served as an Auxillary Officer with the Roman Army and so had learned their tactics and gained their leaders' trust. Each of the major characters of the book are introduced to the reader, and their life's experiences are delved into, providing a means for understanding their various actions during the battle and it's aftermath. The political and social environment of this period in history is explained, from the regal glory of Imperial Rome to the simple day to day existence of a soldier on the frontier or a Germanic tribesman. Wells vividly recreates the battle itself, describing how the Roman Legions were drawn into the trap, with thick forest on one side and a treacherous bog on the other, denied of room to maneuver and unable to use the tactics they had drilled and trained in, their weapopns useless in such close quarters, and the sudden, terrifying attack of the Germans, completely overwhelming and slaughtering the trapped and helpless Romans. Finally, Wells summarizes the effects of the battle, such as halting Roman expansion, shattering the Roman ideology of superiority, and the cultural and economic growth of the Rhineland as the result of thousands of Roman soldiers being stationed along the new boundary. "The Battle That Stopped Rome" is a well researched and well presented account of a battle in antiquity whose effects can still be seen today, and should be a welcome addition to the library of any interested in history or archaeology.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting but full of speculation
Review: The three legions massacred in the German forests was only one of the many defeats suffered by the Romans, and by not means the most dramatic (just compare this to Cannae). Although catastrophic at the time, the Romans did not follow up with an aggressive campaign in Germany as the land did not provide any valuable commodity, and was considered poor for agriculture (unlike the British Isles were despite being defeated the legions returned). The book is interesting but I find it full of speculations, specially its conclusions. If interested in Roman military history buy one of Adrian Goldsworthy's books. They have greater analysis, and are very readable.
Rating:
Summary: A tedious read
Review: The weak leg of military history is that most of it is so badly written. This book is in that tradition. I've no doubt it is well-researched and factually accurate but the author has taken enough information for a magazine article and stretched it into a hardcover book. It is endlessly repetitious and tedious. Much of it is speculation on what MIGHT have happened. I don't think I'd buy this book again.
Rating:
Summary: A prurient reveling in carnage...
Review: This book covers an interesting topic but is excessively repetitious. Moreover, about half of it is devoted to a completely speculative reconstruction of the battle. I can think of at least half dozen other ways the battle might have unfolded. The most disturbing aspect of the book, however, is the almost liplicking relish with which the author describes the variety of wounds the Roman soldiers might have suffered and the tortures to which they might have been subjected after capture. I have read a good bit of forensic pathology and am not easily put off by graphic descriptions of wounds, but the author's writing is a distasteful wallow in carnage.
Rating:
Summary: A 2000 year-old battle brought vividly to life
Review: This book fascinates me in the way it combines two very different sources of evidence about the battle to take the reader back in time. Wells uses historical evidence, written by Roman writers, to understand the general atmosphere surrounding the battle: Roman perspective on the Germans, what the Romans hoped to accomplish in Germany, and how the Emporer Augustus saw his and Rome's roles in the world. The only problem is that none of the Roman writers were at the battle, and some were writing hundreds of years later. So to understand what actually happened, 2000 years ago in that dark German forest, Wells turns to the incredible archaeological work done at the site itself -- a site sought after for centuries and discovered only 16 years ago. The impressive effect of Wells' synthesis is that the reader gets a vivid picture of everything from what it was like to be an average Roman or German at the time (what one would have felt, believed, and desired) to what it would been like to be present at the battle (described in all the excitement, fury, and blood that it must have been). We get a feeling for how the battle affected the big picture -- how it might well have changed the course of the Roman Empire forever -- and how it affected individual lives, down to some incredible details revealed through excavation, which I won't spoil for future readers. In all, the book does a remarkable job of describing an ancient and often-forgotten, but nonetheless inestimably important battle. I would highly recommend it to anyone interested in Romans, iron-age Germans, indigenous-nonindigenous relationships, imperialism, or cross-cultural understanding.
Rating:
Summary: Them Bones OR The Dead Lay In Pools Of Maroon Below!!!!!!!!!
Review: This book is somewhat distressingly oppressive to judge because most of its material unambitiously falls in the indecisive middle-limbo of conflicting pros and cons. The real abrasive exertion is that for each edified pro of Wells' book there's an equally and immediately neutralizing con, which never defends this book to above-average prominence. Transparently, novices, those with no exposure whatsoever to this case study, WILL more likely than not depart with fairly knowledgeable satisfaction about this rarely popular archaeological enigma. Earlier reviewers who chided the supposedly inadequate content of "new information" were likely misguidedly setting their expectations inordinately and unrealistically high. For instance, I was uninitiated in Teutoburg before stumbling across it on amazon, and the book's information's background, history, excavations, and scholarly consensus was pleasingly edifying on those fronts. Answering to my dimly passive half-rating, a catastrophic enormity of the dissatisfying intolerabilities of Wells' book lie in his ANALysis, relevance and efficiency of the information he presents. The first, and, wickedly instant, materialization of Wells' failings arrives with his heinously-and frequently scandalously-irrespective waywardness into the most secondarily immaterial relationships. Despite the book involves the Roman Empire, Rhineland Germanic Barbarians and Teutoburg, the reader's mercilessly and callously hounded with misdirected preoccupations toward Antony and Cleopatra; Augustus' family history-going so corruptly far even to perversely, specifically recount his family's ties to Caesar and his variously intricate paths to produce an heir for succession; the impertinently useless and contemptible cataloguing of the different kinds of funerary rituals, growth, communities, industry, and trade of the east-of-the-Rhine barbaric tribes; the stationed legionnaires' interaction with local barbarians; and the Teutoburg story being uncovered mainly during the Middle Ages, nearly a thousand years removed. Although the aforementioned are expendably unnecessary to grasping Teutoburg, there's some straying by Wells which, though not directly pertinent to the battle, still is complementary to understanding constituents of it. An establishment of Varus' skills as legate of Syria, legionnaires' lives on the frontier and militarism, Arminius' history with Roman administration, and the ramifications of the legions' wipeout all importantly supplement Wells' book. The real ghastliness is that with this "trimming of the fat", excising the crippling pieces from Wells' book, the actual book should only reach half its length-exposing that at least half's misused by Wells as filler to trickily exaggerate his books' length. Yet another harassingly grueling agony on the reader is Wells' detestable proneness to redundancy. Wells mentions legionnaires often got to know the locals around the bases they were stationed in at the frontiers, in Ch.5; Wells grindingly excruciates this fact again in Ch.7, this time referring to the same fact in a chicaning difference, that legionnaires often began unofficial families with local women. This is another prevaricating chicanery of Wells', to fraudulently fill his book through concealing the same oppressive bits of information under different headings and applications. Ominously, I've the sinking feeling that Wells was desperate to botch a book together without the necessary weight that would've resulted in a reasonable length appropriate for adults. Wells also tires to death the reasons for Varus' legions' genocide, referring to Arminius' treacherous education of Roman methods in Ch.8-insidiously disguised under legions marching into the trap-and in Ch.6, which, despite being about Arminius himself, deviously recycles the same information that Arminius replicated Roman tactics through auxiliary service in the legions, under differing headings like "Youth and Early Service" to "His Plan, Strategy, Tactics". Equally outraging is Wells' chronic redundancy about Germanic barbarians' so-called militant sophistication expanding in supposed direct acknowledgment of an impending Roman maraud which materialized in the increase of weapons buried with Germans and the alleged incremented communicability between disparate barbarian tribes, by virtue of common burial practices. Wells' 3rd criticism is certain choice fragments of his objectionable "ANALysis". My most disapprovingly acidic wrath is reserved for Wells' callous partialness for the barbarians. I poisonously repulse his monstrously Roman-derogating censure that Augustus and Rome's full administrative structure "misjudged" the Germanic barbarians' abilities in warfare, coordination and/or learning, for which he frailly offers the woundingly unconvincing citations of their mounting preoccupation with burying weapons in graves and the one-sided absolutism of Arminius' massacre. Wells' charge of Germanic prowess is lawlessly outlandish, because Arminius didn't display better strategy, equipment or strength with his ambush, only infernally conniving guile. Wells cites Rome for underestimating Germanic barbarians' mobilizing capabilities-something absolutely nauseous and murderous to fault with because Augustus was acutely aware of ordeals eastwards of the Rhine, for there were numerous uprisings in 16 B.C.-9 A.D. pressuring Augustus to travel there, reorganizing the military and establishing bases as well as governmental systems like census-taking in preparation for Roman campaigns. Also, that Augustus appointed Varus, who was experienced with quelling torturous rebellions in Syria, reconfirms Augustus' apt notice of the viciously turbulent unsettledness in the Rhineland. Besides factually imperfect ANALysis, Wells grindingly stoops to logically slipping ANALysis. When hypothesizing the development of the battle, Wells alarmingly embellishes that some legionnaires, even after knowing Varus fell on his sword and their kindred were being slaughtered by the thousands, may've "fought like madmen". Wells is undoubtedly blameworthy for scheming to swindle the customer with a book that's both unsatisfactory in length and substance. While revilingly acceptable for the Teutoburg novice, Wells sins in cataclysmically many important aspects of composing a worthy volume. In the preface, Wells confesses THE ONLY CHAPTERS EVER DEALING WITH THE BATTLE-one, eight, nine-are entirely distressing speculations from his own biases. Wells delinquently forebodes that a vindictive majority of his book is questionable due to archaeology's "gray-areas"-yet Wells capitalizes on this raw fact and venomously abuses it to an appalling terrorization. Alongside this already subtracting trepidation, the charting and pictorial attempts that Wells shoddily and uncaringly includes are vindictively imitative. All "maps" are B&W and so rawly, inexpertly "drawn", they literally look like Kindergarteners' doodles!!!! All pictures are irreligiously B&W also, with most insubordinately misguiding from actual Teutoburg pertinence. The lowest, dislikeable salvageability is that the Teutoburg-respective photos are from recovered artifacts.
|
