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    Hannibal
    Hannibal
    Hannibal
    Audiobook11 hours

    Hannibal

    Written by Patrick N. Hunt

    Narrated by James Cameron Stewart

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    One of the greatest commanders of the ancient world brought vividly to life: Hannibal, the brilliant general who successfully crossed the Alps with his war elephants and brought Rome to its knees.

    Hannibal Barca of Carthage, born 247 BC, was one of the great generals of the ancient world. His father, Hamilcar, was also a great strategist and master tactician who imposed Carthaginian rule over much of present-day Spain. After Hamilcar led the Carthaginian forces against Rome in the First Punic War, Hannibal followed in his father's footsteps, leading Carthage in the Second Punic War.

    From the time he was a teenager, Hannibal fought against Rome. He is famed for leading Carthage's army across north Africa, into Spain, along the Mediterranean coast, and then crossing the Alps with his army and war elephants. Hannibal won victories in northern Italy by outmaneuvering his Roman adversaries and defeated a larger Roman army at the battle of Cannae in 216 BC. Unable to force Rome to capitulate, he was eventually forced to leave Italy and return to Carthage when a savvy Roman general named Scipio invaded north Africa. Hannibal and Scipio fought an epic battle at Zama, which Hannibal lost. The terms of surrender were harsh and many Carthaginians blamed Hannibal, eventually forcing him into exile until his death.

    To this day Hannibal is still regarded as a military genius. Napoleon, George Patton, and Norman Schwarzkopf, Jr. are only some of the generals who studied and admired him. His strategy and tactics are still taught in military academies. He is one of the figures of the ancient world whose life and exploits never fail to impress. Historian Patrick N. Hunt has led archaeological expeditions in the Alps and elsewhere to study Hannibal's achievements. Now he brings Hannibal's incredible story to life in this riveting and dramatic book.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateDec 25, 2018
    ISBN9781977332431
    Author

    Patrick N. Hunt

    Patrick N. Hunt is an archeologist, historian, and biographer who has taught humanities, archeology, and mythology at Stanford University since 1993. A Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society in London, Hunt has been featured on TV documentaries, including National Geographic Explorer, Nova, and the Discovery Channel. He is also a National Geographic Expeditions expert. Articles about his Hannibal research have appeared in National Geographic, Archaeology Magazine, and Earth magazine among others. He is the author of Hannibal, Ten Discoveries That Rewrote History, and When Empires Clash: Twelve Great Battles in Antiquity, among other books. He lives in the Bay Area, California.

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    Reviews for Hannibal

    4/5

    29 ratings5 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Really great history on one of history’s greatest commanders and awesome narration,
    • 5/5
      Great book. Hardly any part of this book allows one to lose interest.
    • 3/5
      I read a lot of biographies. I think many times, history is best learned and understood through studying the people that make it.This biography of the Carthaginian general Hannibal Barca is a pretty substandard effort, all things considered. Writing biographies of ancient personages is a tricky business. Sometimes there is very little source material. In others, what source material exists cannot be certified as accurate. That is certainly the case here, where the sources many times conflict markedly. The two primary sources, Livy and Polybius wrote many years after the events and were naturally biased in their allegiances. Many times, their accounts are widely divergent.Perhaps more bothersome is the extremely informal writing style practiced by the author. At times, this biography reads like a high school book report. Another problem with the book, and one that I find frequently, is a paucity of maps, which could have assisted in following the action. There are three maps, which set out three important battles (which is pretty much guesswork). After that, there are dozens of pages describing troop movements full of place names and geographical descriptions that are essentially worthless without a map.I’m sure that the most important, key elements of the story or relatively accurate. After that, the author is largely guessing. Hannibal was a fascinating and historically important shaper of ancient history. Unfortunately, not enough is known about he or his exploits to produce a solid, scholarly work. So, we are left with this, a pretty poor effort.
    • 3/5
      Hannibal Barca is regarded as one of the great military commanders of the Western world, a status which is a little surprising considering that he never actually defeated his great opponent Rome in a war. Part of this honor is undoubtedly due to his success in battle, as in a succession of victories his outnumbered forces defeated the Roman legions sent out to destroy them. Yet Patrick Hunt's new biography of the Carthaginian general points to another reason why he holds such an exalted status, as his success ironically helped the Romans to become the dominant empire we remember it as today.

      This, of course, was not Hannibal's goal when he set out to destroy Rome in 218. The son of a Carthaginian statesman who led his country's forces in the First Punic War, Hannibal made revenge the main focus of his life. His achievements in this regard were nothing short of remarkable, as he led his men on a grueling march through the Alps into often hostile territory, where through brilliant generalship and a shrewd exploitation of Celtic grievances he repeatedly bested the troops sent by Rome to defeat them. Yet rather than surrender, Rome adapted by adjusting their leadership structure and adopting a strategy of attrition, trapping Hannibal in a war he couldn't bring to a resolution, The culmination came in the battle of Zama in 202, when Hannibal found the situation neatly reversed, as his untrained army was defeated by the better-managed legions of Scipio Africanus, who used some of Hannibal's own tactics against him in order to win.

      Hunt's book offers a knowledgeable overview of Hannibal's life and times. This is no small achievement considering the paucity of sources and their bias -- the only historical sources on Hannibal are Roman ones, with all of the problems that this entails. Often this has the effect of turning his book into more of a history of the Second Punic War than a biography, but the advantage of this is that it highlights what is Hannibal's greatest contribution to history. For while he may not have succeeded in defeating Rome, he became its greatest teacher of the military arts and helped to make them into the empire that would endure for seven centuries and more. This alone makes Hannibal well worth reading about.
    • 4/5
      An interesting overview of the life and military career of Carthaginian general Hannibal Barca, one of the greatest military minds of the ancient world and Rome's greatest enemy in the Second Century BCE. It's mostly a military history, with discussion of battles and troops; it seems that there is not much known about him personally, but his exploits go a long way. Unfortunately I suspect that the publishers demanded more text from the author, so he gets very repetitive at times trying to stretch it out; I would have much preferred they lengthened the book by adding more maps, as the geography is not always clear to me, especially in Spain, Italy, and Tunisia.