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In premise, this is more of a meditation on history than a ‘strict’ history book. Zamoyski had some thoughts on nationalism, and faith, and wrote this book to explore his thoughts. The general theme is that as the church lost its place of primacy in European society, the habits of thought remained, and devotion got redirected to the idea of ‘the state’.

It’s an interesting idea, and he’s certainly onto something. I’d kind of like something a bit less nebulous, though it’d probably go over my head. At any rate, in Holy Madness, it’s obvious that he has found every case of religious imagery, or ecstatic feeling in the writings of 19th Century revolutionaries. But I wonder how much (or really, how many people) doesn’t follow that theme? Perhaps its a consistent tone/theme across the vast bulk of them, but since there’s no examination of that, there’s no way to know. Certainly, he does show a strong ideal of martyrdom in a lot of writings.

Overall, there’s certainly some very interesting things going on here. The end of the French Revolution and Napoleon left a lot of people with unfulfilled dreams in Europe. Whenever some new ‘national project’ came up these people would show up to try to help, aiding revolutions with fundraising for arms, and a people who could form up revolutionary units to fight for a glorious death in the name of liberty. The three decades after 1815 in Europe aren’t dangerous for the ideals unleashed to cause the population to rise up (the general population in the countryside often wanted no part of it), but instead dangerous for all the flotsam and jetsam of previously wrecked hopes washing back and forth across the continent.

Post 1848… ‘revolutionary society’ is shown to be the transition out of the age. Some of what these men have been fighting for is happening politically. The new idealists have very different views, and the people who are powering all this struggle are aging out. The social circles get smaller every year, and while they still hold their decades old grudges, its becoming harder to fire everyone up for a new cause.

To a certain extent the formation of Italy and Germany mark the end of the movements this book is following, but it’s not quite presented that way, with things tending to trail off, not quite off-screen, but not really focused on. As with any natural process, there’s no neat end, no turning of the page, though there is further summary of where some of these passions went next.

The Greco-Persian Wars are famous thanks to some very good accounts written not long after they happened (primarily The Histories), but still get boiled down to a few famous battles. The Battle of Plataea isn’t one of those, and feels more like a denouement after the drama of Salamis.

However, the Persan Empire still had a very large army that wintered over in Greece after Salamis. Much of the army pulled back with Xerxes, but what was left was still larger than what the Greeks could likely put up against it. The next year would see the Persians finish by land what they had started by land, and been delayed by sea.

Osprey has done Campaign books for all the major battles of the two invasions of Greece, though I only have this one and Marathon (which was good). This one is meant to stand alone, and starts with an eleven-page summary of the rise of Persia and its conflicts with Greece. This is followed by the usual short descriptions of the various commanders involved (very short in this case, ~3 pages for five people). There is a good look at the Persian and Greek armies, with the general equipment of both, and some analysis of the likely number of men in each army. The following section on overall planning is fairly brief, but covers the situation well.

The main narrative starts with the Persian withdrawal after Salamis (noting that the Greeks had expected a ’round two’ the next day), and deals well with all the politicking that surrounded the efforts to keep the Greek army in the field, and decide just where it would be stationed. The main bulk of the battle is well described, and there’s a couple of good ‘soldier’s eye’ view illustrations, but of course, it largely follows Herodotus’ account. There is some good analysis over how the Greek supplies were working, and the Persian attempts to cut that off; this is also followed by some good work on just what happened during the attempted pull out and the climatic day of the battle.

There’s also a very short section on the Battle of Mycale, which supposedly happened on the same day. The Histories doesn’t talk as much about it, and therefore there’s not a lot to say here, though there is an area map, and a good photo of where the battle presumably happened.

Overall, it’s a competent Campaign book, but not a stellar one. This is mostly caused by the fact we’re dependent on one well-known source. It’s well analyzed here, but there’s not a whole lot to do, though of course the photos of the area, and the maps are a great help.