Awards
A Time Magazine Best Book of the Year
Synopses & Reviews
The acclaimed author of The Face of Battle examines centuries of conflict in a variety of diverse societies and cultures.
Review
"Keegan is at once the most readable and the most original of living military historians....A History of Warfare is perhaps the most remarkable study of warfare that has yet been written." The New York Times Book Review
Review
"I do not know a work in which such an encyclopedic range of military knowledge is so well arranged." George MacDonald Fraser, National Review
Review
"Brilliant....[John Keegan is] one of the century's most distinguished military historians....His new book is alive with sudden, unexpected details and delights of knowledge." Time
Review
"The best military historian of our generation." Tom Clancy
Review
"[S]weeping....Keegan offers a refreshingly original and challenging perspective....A masterwork." Publishers Weekly
Review
"Whatever war is, it is not simple to understand or to control, but Keegan focuses its blurry fury with acute, cross-disciplinary insight and eminently accessible style." Gilbert Taylor, Booklist
Review
"A masterpiece....This is one of those rare books which could still be required reading in its field a hundred years from now." The New Yorker
Review
"This title will challenge interested readers and prove useful for research papers, philosophical discussions, debates, and anthropology and sociology classes." School Library Journal
Synopsis
The acclaimed author and preeminent military historian John Keegan examines centuries of human conflict. From primitive man in the bronze age to the end of the cold war in the twentieth century, Keegan shows how armed conflict has been a primary preoccupation throughout the history of civilization and how deeply rooted its practice has become in our cultures.
"Keegan is at once the most readable and the most original of living military historians . . . A History of Warfare is perhaps the most remarkable study of warfare that has yet been written."--The New York Times Book Review."
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. 411-417).
About the Author
John Keegan was for many years senior lecturer in military history at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, and has been a fellow at Princeton University and a professor of history at Vassar College. He is the author of thirteen previous books, including the acclaimed The Face of Battle and The Second World War. He lives in Wiltshire, England.
Table of Contents
Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1 War in Human History 1
Interlude: Limitations on Warmaking 61
2 Stone 77
Interlude: Fortification 137
3 Flesh 153
Interlude: Armies 219
4 Iron 235
Interlude: Logistics and Supply 299
5 Fire 317
Conclusion 386
References 393
Select Bibliography 411
Index 418