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    War: A History in 100 Battles
    War: A History in 100 Battles
    War: A History in 100 Battles
    Audiobook16 hours

    War: A History in 100 Battles

    Written by Richard Overy

    Narrated by Steven Crossley

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    The object of this book is to introduce readers to a whole range of military history which has all the drama, dangers, horrors and excitement that we associate with Stalingrad or the Somme. Battles are acute moments of history whenever and wherever they have been fought. Through them we can understand how warfare and world history have evolved.

    Choosing just one hundred battles from recorded human history is a challenge. Not just because it is necessary to cover almost 6,000 years of history, but because men have fought each other almost continuously for millennia. Anyone who knows anything about the history of war may be disappointed at what has had to be left out. However, each of the 100 memorable battles described shows both how the nature of armed combat has changed over human history, and also how, despite changes in technology, organisation or ideas, many things have remained the same.

    It is an old adage that you can win a battle but lose a war. The battles featured here almost always resulted in victory for one side or another, but the victor did not necessarily win the war. Some battles are decisive in that broader historical sense, others are not. The further back in time, the more likely it is that an enemy could be finished off in one blow. The wars of the modern age, between major states, have involved repeated battles until one side was battered into submission. Some of the great generals of the recent past – Napoleon, Robert E Lee, Erich von Manstein – have been on the losing side but are remembered nonetheless for their generalship.

    Some on the winning side have all but disappeared from the history books or from public memory. Equally, in many battles, the issue is not victory or defeat, but what the battle can tell us about the history of warfare itself. New weapons, new tactics, new ways of organising armed forces can have a sudden impact on the outcome of a battle. But so too can leadership, or the effects of a clever deception, or raw courage. That is why the book has been divided up into clear themes which apply equally to the battles of the ancient world as they do to the battles of today.

    As Professor Richard Overy laments: “Battle is not a game to plug into a computer but a piece of living history, messy, bloody and real. That, at least, has not changed in 6,000 years.”

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins Publishers
    Release dateOct 6, 2016
    ISBN9780008209995
    Author

    Richard Overy

    Richard Overy is a leading authority in the field of modern history. He is Professor of Modern History at Exeter University, and is the general editor for the highly-acclaimed Times History of the World series of books.

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    Reviews for War

    4/5

    22 ratings3 reviews

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    • 3/5
      Mr. Overy has sifted and sorted and chosen 100 important battles from various points in world history and grouped them according to the various tactical, strategic, leadership, or lucky conditions that governed the outcomes. This is an interesting approach but the book is curiously bland. There are no maps or battle graphics to help make the battle more real. The book is full of reproductions of famous battle artwork, but these add nothing to our understanding. It is the lack of emotion that is the real problem. Mr. Overy describes each battle on a page. Each battle is historically correct but without the space to add context or interpretation, he might as well have given us lists of each of his groupings and we could read the Wikipedia entries by ourselves.I received a review copy of "A History of War in 100 Battles" by Richard Overy (Oxford University Press) through NetGalley.com.
    • 1/5
      A good idea but very poorly executed in terms of choice of battles as well as solid research.
    • 4/5
      These types of survey/anthology books are often difficult to pull off. Fortunately with A History of War in 100 Battles, this was not the case. The history of war and warfare is often a difficult subject to tackle, but Richard Overy has done it expertly. Not only would this book be a great primer for students and scholars, but also as a one stop shop for quick overviews of key battles in military history.Rather than provide a straight chronology from the 1200s BC through today, Overy divides his history using six different aspects of war then presents the battles chronologically within each. Those aspects are:1. "Leadership" -- focusing on the skills of the general or field head in securing victory2. "Against the Odds" -- looks at those battles where the forces superior in number and strength were dealt defeat3. "Innovation" -- those battles where new technologies or tactics influenced the outcome4. "Deception" -- the use of subversion to change the outcome of the battle5. "In the Nick of Time" -- how last minute changes to plans or reinforcements at the right moment can change history6. "Courage in the Face of Fire" -- a focus on the bravery of the common foot soldiers as they overcome their fears to secure victory.Each of these chapters allow for the reader to focus on that one aspect of war and look at each battle through that lens, seeing how it was influential in history. This not to say that there could be overlap with some engagements, but it is clearly a well thought out and organized layout. I found the inclusion of both land and naval battles to be refreshing, allowing for all aspects of war to be included. The battle selections are often Euro-centric, but each has a full explanation as to why they are included in the 100 and these reasons are sound. Battles from Asia, Africa, and the Americas are very well represented as well.As for the descriptions of the battles themselves, they are very accessible to the casual reader as well as the researcher. Each is about 3-4 pages in length, and while there is a supposition of previous knowledge in some cases for the majority of the 100 battles enough background and detail is provided to give the reader a thorough understanding of the action that took place as well as the impact on history. As is often the case with anthologies of this nature, however, is that we only get the basic information for each battle. Any more would require a volume five times this size.I had only two real criticisms of A History of War in 100 Battles. The first is that sources were not linked or included within the text itself, making it difficult for someone interested in further researching only one battle to find reference material. Also, there are no maps present within the text. Each battle has one or two images, photos, paintings, or illustrations that accompany them, but there is not a single map in the lot. A minor criticism for sure, but I would have liked to have seen them for some, if not all the battles.