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Article: Chariot: From Chariot to Tank, The Astounding Rise and Fall of the World's First War Machine.(Book review)
- Article from:
- The Historian
- Article date:
- September 22, 2007
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2007 Phi Alpha Theta, History Honor Society, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Chariot: From Chariot to Tank, The Astounding Rise and Fall of the World's First War Machine. By Arthur Cotterell. (Woodstock, N.Y.: The Overlook Press, 2005. Pp. 344. $29.95.)
This book is a detailed summary of how ancient civilizations used the chariot in war or, later, as a ritual symbol. The author takes the reader from the device's appearance in the "land of the two rivers," as the Iraqi insurgents still call that region today, to India, China, and briefly also to Europe, where the reader finds it being used in different functions: a kind of battle "taxi" in the army of Achilles and Hector, a prop in the triumph of victorious generals in Rome, and a war tool ...