'John Keegan is at once the most readable and the most original of living military historians-His book is a work of massive sweep-the most remarkable study of warfare that has yet been written.' Michael Howard, New York Times Review of Books
'John Keegan is at once the most readable and the most original of living military historians... His book is a work of massive sweep...the most remarkable study of warfare that has yet been written.' Michael Howard, New York Times Review of Books
John Keegan is the Defence Editor of the Daily Telegraph and Britain's foremost military historian. The Reith Lecturer in 1998, he is the author of many bestselling books including The Face of Battle, Six Armies in Normandy, Battle at Sea, The Second World War, A History of Warfare (awarded the Duff Cooper Prize), Warpaths, The Battle for History, The First World War, and most recently, Intelligence in War. For many years John Keegan was the Senior Lecturer in Military History at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, and he has been a Fellow of Princeton University and Delmas Distinguished Professor of History at Vassar. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He received the OBE in the Gulf War honours list, and was knighted in the Millennium honours list in 1999. John Keegan died in August 2012.
John Keegan is at once the most readable and the most original of
military historians... His book is a work of massive sweep...the
most remarkable study of warfare that has yet been written.
*New York Times Review of Books*
Masterpiece...one of those rare books which could still be required
reading in its field a hundred years from now.
*The New Yorker*
Our finest military historian has produced a book of breathtaking
scope...A tour de force.
*Daily Mail*
The best book I read in 1993 was A History of Warfare...a dazzling
display of historical pyrotechnics.
*Sunday Times, Books of the Year*
Magnificent
*Sunday Telegraph*
John Keegan is at once the most readable and the most original of
military historians... His book is a work of massive sweep...the
most remarkable study of warfare that has yet been written. --
Michael Howard * New York Times Review of Books *
Masterpiece...one of those rare books which could still be required
reading in its field a hundred years from now. * The New Yorker
*
Our finest military historian has produced a book of breathtaking
scope...A tour de force. -- Niall Ferguson * Daily Mail *
The best book I read in 1993 was A History of Warfare...a dazzling
display of historical pyrotechnics. -- Paul Johnson * Sunday Times,
Books of the Year *
Magnificent * Sunday Telegraph *
YA-Keegan begins his comprehensive but concise survey by debunking the classical tenet that war is an inevitable result of politics. In a well-developed and relatively easy-to-follow argument, he reexamines this previously inviolate theory. By following the progress of war and warriors from primitive societies to the post-Cold War era, and by detailing the concurrent development of weapons technology, he allows readers to see that warfare need not be an all-or-nothing event. He includes many interesting details in his survey, e.g., vivid descriptions of torture, of the development of horse-warriors and charioteers, and of the arrival and consequences of the atom bomb. While leading readers to the conclusion and hope that man is not necessarily a warrior, he canvasses the spread of ``civilization'' and the making of nation-states as we know them today. The book includes prints, diagrams, and photographs. This title will challenge interested readers and prove useful for research papers, philosophical discussions, debates, and anthropology and sociology classes. Even dedicated militarists will find food for thought in Keegan's theories and historical perspective.-Susan H. Woodcock, King's Park Library, Burke, VA
Keegan adds to his reputation as a writer of military history ( The Second World War , LJ 11/1/89, among others) with this wide-ranging and provocative volume. While he believes that humankind is not doomed to make war, he recognizes that the world's written history is largely a history of warfare. Warfare in turn reflects culture. For instance, Asian war making is characterized by patterns of delay, evasion, and indirection and an ethic of limitation based on Confucian and Islamic ideals. Western culture, on the other hand, incorporates a moral element of face-to-face battle to the death and a technological bias toward constant innovations in weaponry. These factors have combined to generate the total wars that are often considered the norm of conflict. Keegan's emphases on restraint and ritual in war, and on the importance of separating it from politics, challenge conventional wisdom in a way that makes this work essential for all public and private collections on the subject.-- D.E. Showalter, Colorado Coll., Colorado Springs
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