I'm currently reading Victor Davis Hanson's book The Western Way of War and over and over again he claims that the idea of two armies clashing together in a pitched battle on an open field originated in Greek classical antiquity.
I was reading Babylon: Mesopotamia and the Birth of Civilization by Paul Kriwaczek before and in that book it is argued that the Sumerians and other Mesopotamian city states like Ur and Uruk would line their armies up and charge each other, just like the Greeks did.
I admit I have only got about a chapter into TWWoW but the claims made in it have been bothering me. Is this a fair reading of Hanson, or has the scholarship moved on?
The whole subfield of ways of war and strategic culture is a bit of a mess, really, with a rather lot of heat and relatively little illumination. That said, VDH's basic thesis still retains some weight (at least, sufficient weight for books still to be published attacking it), in part because it is ethnocentric, and moreover in a way that makes us in the west feel good about ourselves. After all, if Europe (and later the USA) weren't so unique, how did they end up doing so well for themselves militarily? A lot of discussion of culture and ways of war does tend to fall back upon stereotype, unfortunately.
I'm currently reading a book (about halfway through) which argues against VDH's thesis called Perilous Glory: The Rise of Western Military Power by John France. Here he simplifies ways of war into two basic models: the close clash of infantry which stems, not from the west, but rather from agricultural urban societies (including Greece, but also the Mesopotamians and the Chinese) and the fluid, mobility based style of warfare of the steppe peoples. On top of that simplification, he identifies three ways of attacking the opponent: battle, destruction aimed at the enemy's economic power, and sieges. He suggests that for most of history, the two types of warfare were in approximate balance. Steppe warfare gained an ascendancy from about 1200 to 1683 due to the success of the Mongols and the Ottomans (the end date marking the Ottoman defeat in front of Vienna). He describes how steppe warfare came to dominate most of Eurasia and the Middle East because most of those areas were accessible to the Steppe peoples and had the connections and resources to maintain steppe armies. Europe, as mountainous peninsula off the world's largest continent, was isolated from these events because large steppe armies simply could not sustain themselves there, allowing for a much different style of war to emerge. China also managed to maintain it's own style, due in large part to its ability to absorb invaders.
Yet even within this unique European style, battles were still relatively rare. Sieges were more frequent, in part because cities and fortresses marked the control of territory, which was one of the great prizes of war. Cities and fortresses meant land, and therefore wealth, as well as prestige. Destruction of economic power was the norm of much of European warfare for most of history. It was easier to achieve than either victory in battle or success through siege.
So I've read up to 1683, which is right at the cusp of when Europe starts dominating everyone else. Though France has suggested that the maritime exploration begun by Portugal and continued by others is an example of Europeans trying to bypass the sheer power of the steppe as embodied in the Ottoman Empire to reach China and India directly. He also suggests that the Europeans were not really seriously prepared for war with natives, and so many places where they had to fight against a serious opponent they had a rather difficult time making inroads.
Some of VDH's basic ideas remain popular, but scholarship is trying to move on.
Aren't big parts of his thesis also the citizens' military role and how the Greeks fought a ritualized style of warfare that limited losses and territorial acquisition?
Been awhile since I read it, but I'm pretty sure he went way deeper than claiming that the Greeks were the first in shield walls.