A HISTORY OF WAR IN 100 BATTLES

Despite the title, this is not a coherent history but rather isolated, generously illustrated accounts of battles from ancient Egypt to the present day.

Collections of battle descriptions are one of the most lowbrow forms of military history, and readers will wonder why prolific and respected author Overy (History/Univ. of Exeter; The Bombers and the Bombed: Allied Air War Over Europe 1940-1945, 2014) chose such a moth-eaten genre. After a dozen-page introduction on the culture of battle (“Battle is not a game to plug into a computer but a piece of living history—messy, bloody and real. That…has not changed in 6,000 years”), he delivers two- to four-page chapters on his chosen 100 battles, divided into six categories. Readers must accept these on faith, although they do provide the author the opportunity to write six astute introductions. Thus, “leadership” characterizes Cannae, Hastings, Trafalgar and Kharkov under, respectively, Hannibal, William the Conqueror, Nelson and Von Manstein. Generals Marlborough, Custer, Washington and Eisenhower certainly possessed leadership qualities, but Overy has no doubt that Blenheim, Little Big Horn, Yorktown and the invasion of Normandy were examples of “deception.” Readers curious to know the common features of Marathon, the Somme, Gettysburg and Stalingrad will learn that these demonstrated “courage in the face of fire.” Limiting himself to just three significant battles (Agincourt, Waterloo, the Somme), John Keegan wrote a classic, The Face of Battle (1976). Entire volumes have covered a single significant battle, and Wikipedia often does a superior job explaining the obscure and unknown.

Military buffs will turn up their noses at this well-written but unnecessary book, and beginners will be confused by the sketchy historical background and absence of maps. The illustrations are little help since they are mostly portraits of leaders or artists’ renderings of battles, vivid but purely imaginary.