How long does it take to read Carnage and Culture?
landmark battles in the rise of Western power
Carnage and Culture by Victor Davis Hanson takes about 9 hours 9 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.
About 9 hours 9 minutes
A week or two of reading
First published 2001. 499 pages, about 137,225 words.
19 days at 30 minutes a day
Estimate based on 275 words per page.
At other speeds
| Slow, 150 words a minute | 15 hours 15 minutes |
| Average, 250 words a minute | 9 hours 9 minutes |
| Fast, 400 words a minute | 5 hours 43 minutes |
The page count is the median across 2 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.
About the book
From the Preface... ... I have deliberately concentrated on those West-East fault lines that emphasize the singular lethality of Western culture at war in comparison to other traditions that grew up in Asia, Africa, and the Americas. These valid generalizations should not imply that at times there were not real differences among particular European states themselves or that Western and non-Western cultures were either monolithic or always at odds with each other. And while I discuss larger issues of government, religion, and economy, my primary aim is to explain Western military power, not the general nature and evolution of Western civilization at large. This is not a book, then, written for academic specialists. Instead, I have tried to offer a synthesis of Western society at war for the general reader across some 2,500 years of history that concentrates on general trends, rather than an original work of primary research within a defined historical period. I have used formal scholarly citations in parentheses in the text only for the longer direct quotations—although detailed information concerning factual material is derived from primary sources and secondary books and articles discussed at the conclusion of the book.
Subjects: Military History, Battles, Civilization, western, history
