Greek Fire, Poison Arrows & Scorpion Bombs: Biological and Chemical Warfare in the Ancient World | 
|  | | | Title: | Greek Fire, Poison Arrows & Scorpion Bombs: Biological and Chemical Warfare in the Ancient World | | Author: | Adrienne Mayor | | Publisher: | Overlook Hardcover | | Type: | Book / Hardcover | | Publication Date: | 29 September, 2003 | | ISBN / ISBN-13: | 158567348X / 9781585673483 | | List Price: | $27.95 | | You Save: | $0.01 | | Amazon Price: | $27.94 (via Amazon marketplace seller) | | | |
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Book Description
With the news full of talk about bioterrorism and chemical weapons, Adrienne Mayor's exploration of the origins of biological and unethical warfare is an attention-grabber that follows through with fascinating illustrative episodes. A meticulously researched page-turner, Greek Fire, Poison Arrows & Scorpion Bombs draws extraordinary connections between the mythical worlds of Hercules and the Trojan War, the accounts of Herodotus and Thucydides, and modern warfare.
This is the first book to trace biological and chemical warfare to its ancient roots, and Mayor's thought-provoking findings are riveting. Drawing on sources ancient and modern, Mayor describes ancient recipes for arrow poisons, boobytraps rigged with plague, petroleum-based combustibles, choking gases, and the deployment of dangerous animals and venomous insects. She also explores the ambiguous moral implications inherent in this kind of warfare: Are these nefarious forms of warfare ingenious or cowardly? Admirable or reprehensible?
Science magazine called Mayor's The First Fossil Hunters "rich, spirited, and eminently readable" and Newsday praised her ability to "merge the fields of paleontology, archaeology, and classical literature." Greek Fire, Poison Arrows & Scorpion Bombs finds similar success merging mythology with modern science and the ethics of warfare.
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Customer Reviews:
• An Outstanding And Much Needed Book 24 April, 2004
Greek Fire is an extraordinary book. To put the subject of the book plainly, it deals with biological and chemical warfare in the ancient world from myth to history. I had not given much thought to the use of chemical and biological agents in the ancient world, focussing instead on the more familiar weaponry and tactics. The majority of historians and certainly the people we know probably believe that chemical weapons were created in World War I, with the advent of mustard and other gasses. This is very far from the truth and Adrienne Mayor provides us with the missing link in the ancient world: the use of dangerous agents to cause mass destruction. The book is well organized into subjects dealing first with the mythic origin of chemical weapons: Hercules and the Hydra. Ms. Mayor proceeds to discuss poisoned arrows, defeating enemies by poisoning water and diverting streams, winning a victory by poisoning the food your enemies will eat, the use of insects and animals against enemies and creating chemical weapons, such as flame throwers. We learn that the ancients understood that animals such as rats and mice were the cause of plagues, how shamans went out to gather dangerous plants and how they were handled in the preparation of weapons and how real Pandora's boxes existed filled with plague-generating material. Ms. Mayor often includes modern parallels to the ancient stories, including recent events, to show that the use of chemical and biological weapons were (and still are) used to create fear of the weapon. I found it surprising to learn that Winston Churchill ordered poison gas used against the Kurds in the 1920s. This book is a wealth of information about the development and use of chemical and biological weapons in the ancient world, the feeling engendered about the weapons and the clever stratagems employed many times in the use of these weapons. As one reads this book, its importance becomes more evident with each chapter and you wonder why no one has come to realize the long history of terror weapons and how people felt centuries ago is still relevant to our time. Greek Fire is a well-written and its subjects are thoroughly discussed. It is a hard book to put down and will not disappoint.
- Reviewed by customer ID: AUEHG0DB54B7K
• Myth And Warfare - Definitely Worth It 30 August, 2005
You will enjoy this book even if you don't care for military history. I recommend this for anyone interested in ancient Greece and parallels to modern reality. This was well-written, entertaining and not too academic. I liked the weaving in of myth, the practical truth behind it. You won't be disappointed.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A3DWQ3VW05SD3N
• Wanna Be Weapons Of Mass Destruction 07 October, 2005
Since the terror attacks of 9-11, a lot of attention has gone into the science and threat of weapons of mass destruction. Unfortunately, there has been little history to accompany it, especially within the American popular press. This is unfortunate, as both biological and chemical weapons have been used extensively throughout human history by many nations and armies against other nations and armies. In this context, this is a good book to read to gain historical and moral perspective on the use of such weapons.
This book provides a history of the science and use of both chemical and biological weapons within the context of Western recorded history. The book begins with references of these types of weapons in ancient Greek, such as in the tasks of Hercules. The use of these weapons in warfare is then covered, such as how Roman armies would poison the water supplies of their enemies, or how white settlers purposely infected Native Americans with diseases like smallpox during the colonial era.
The book does a good job of covering the science and technology of these weapons, their efficacy and reliability in use, the decision-making and moral balancing that decided their employment, and their relative importance on and off the battlefield compared with other weapons and military tactics.
The book is lacking on one front; it completely leaves out the use of addictive drugs in war. Whether it was opium in China, alcohol in North America or cocaine in South America, the use of addictive drugs by one group of people to weaken, enslave and even destroy another group of people is common practice in the history of man. Granted there might not be enough historical evidence to document such behavior. But overall, it is a good book to read and worthy of any bookshelf.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A1DK5AZMXS1QA3
• It Should Be Better 04 December, 2005
Greek Fire, Poison Arrows and Scorpion Bombs, by Adrienne Mayor, has a promising title. It claims to be about biological and chemical warfare in the ancient world, but this book comes far short of its claims. Although the book is divided into chapters, it jumps around chaotically, there seems to be no order to the presentation as Mayor's jumps topics, chronology and geographics. There is almost an implication that China, India, Rome, Persia, Greece and others elsewhere were developing similar weapons simultaneously, despite the years and miles that separated them. This book is so repetitious; the same stories are retold, some even within the same chapter. It is not clear what is chemical, biological, myth or history. Are elephants, camels, bears and dogs biological weapons in the normal sense of the term? There is very little presented in terms of science and technology, and this topic demands it. Worse are the ridiculous conclusions that fall from the scant evidence in the ancient literature, particularly the myths, where she does not hypothesize, but makes unconditional claims that the evidence clearly shows the use of these weapons. Throughout the book she throws in her self-righteous moralizing, with an underlying anti-west, anti-religious bias, reaching her peak with the ridiculous rant in the last chapter about modern weapons and their dismantling (the US government can't win, even in trying to rid of the weapons). Does she really believe that burying nuclear waste (only a fraction from weapons) underground will cause earthquakes (page 255)? The endnotes (there are no linked footnotes) offer little about where to find more information. I wanted this book to be better; it is an interesting topic, but it is a poorly written and edited disappointment.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A36DPPC53ANNG7
• A Catalog Of Ancient Nasties 14 September, 2004
Mayor's "Greek Fire, Poison Arrows & Scorpion Bombs" purports to be an historical survey of biological and chemical warfare in ancient times. Certainly we knew a lot about naptha (Greek Fire), a much-feared incendiary weapon, and I think poison arrows were fairly well known too, but her research has uncovered several other strange and disgusting ways of killing people, such as pouring molten pitch, distilling snake venom, cultivating diseases and, yes, bundling venomous snakes or scorpions up and lobbing the resultant "bomb" in the enemy's direction. The book is a pretty good compilation of these various methods. Nevertheless it is a very, very dry compendium; it also gets ahead of itself. Is it really fair to say that elephants, as used by Hannibal, were a "biological" weapon - if so, then every cavalry battalion has been a weapon of mass destruction. Nonetheless a very interesting work, if somewhat disappointing in presentation.
- Reviewed by customer ID: ACJ023CBVAN9Y
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