Reviews

Chariot: From Chariot to Tank, the Astounding Rise and Fall of the World’s First War Machine

Arthur Cotterell
(New York: Overlook Press, 2005) 344 pp., $29.95

When thinking of war, we tend to imagine heavily armed tank columns rolling across the plains of Europe or Iraq (rather than, say, infantry combat in the jungles of Vietnam or the backstreets of Baghdad). This marriage of mobility and firepower is not new. The most deadly combat forces of the Middle Ages were the cavalry of Europe and the mounted archers of central Asia. Still earlier, the horse-drawn chariot, with driver and bowman, reigned supreme for nearly a millennium on battlefields from Egypt to China.

While modern tanks and medieval cavalry have received ample attention in popular and scholarly literature, however, the chariot has largely been ignored. In Chariot: From Chariot to Tank, the Astounding Rise and Fall of the World’s First War Machine, Arthur Cotterell sets out to redress that imbalance and give the chariots of the ancient world and the men who fought in them their due.

Cotterell brings impressive credentials to his task. His publications are numerous and extend over the entire cultural, chronological and geographical landscape of antiquity. He is particularly known for a series of general-interest reference volumes. Several of these are comprehensive works on ancient civilizations, but most deal with mythology, especially classical, Celtic and Norse mythology. His non-encyclopedic writings include a volume on the Minoans of Crete and a number of general works on ancient China. Chariots therefore marks a departure for Cotterell, being his first non-reference work on a specialized topic.

He attributes the inspiration for the project to Vanderbilt University historian Robert Drews, who proposed in his End of the Bronze Age (1993) that the Bronze Age societies of the eastern Mediterranean were destroyed by the advent of heavy infantry, which swept aside the chariot forces on which armies had relied. Cotterell observed that similar military changes had taken place in China, so he then began looking at the phenomenon from a “cross-cultural” perspective.

The resulting narrative surveys all of the ancient cultures that made use of chariots, from Europe to China. Cotterell navigates this vast geographical and temporal territory effortlessly, in an accessible literary style.

Cotterell recognizes that chariots were “weapon systems” consisting of a vehicle, horses and a crew that included a driver and at least one warrior, typically an archer. He explores the role and development of each of these components in detail. It is fascinating, for example, to read his discussion of horse breeding and of chariot design, particularly the crucial importance of spoked, as opposed to solid, chariot wheels.

Best of all, in my opinion, is Cotterell’s examination of the origins, design and employment of the composite bow, the preferred weapon of chariot forces across the ancient world. Drawing on sources for bows from Tutankhamun’s tomb, Assyrian relief sculpture and Hindu epics, he drives home the point that the composite bow—a bow made from different materials laminated together—enabled ancient chariot forces to destroy enemy formations from much greater distances. Indeed, Cotterell argues that the end of the chariot’s military preeminence came with the emergence of bow-armed cavalry, which could maneuver more effectively than chariots, and the invention of superior missile-delivering weapons, such as the Chinese crossbow, which allowed infantry to move swiftly to close with opposing chariots and disable their horses with javelins.

Unfortunately, Chariot also suffers from a serious flaw: It repeatedly wanders off on tangents that bear no obvious relation to the subject. Thus readers find themselves adrift, sometimes for several pages, in chariot-free accounts of religion, governmental systems or the international relations of whatever culture Cotterell happens to be discussing. The book would have benefited from more rigorous editing. As it stands, readers wanting to learn about chariot warfare must mine that information from a mass of extraneous narrative material.

Chariot will appeal to readers who like a leisurely approach to historical subjects, a sort of unhurried vacation ramble as opposed to a purposeful scholarly trip. Whether a chariot is the best vehicle for such a journey is debatable, but Arthur Cotterell is certainly a good driver.

Chariot: From Chariot to Tank, the Astounding Rise and Fall of the World’s First War Machine