Acclaimed military historian John Keegan’s anthology of war writing from 25 centuries of battle
In The Book of War, John Keegan marshals a formidable host of war writings to chronicle the evolution of Western warfare through the voice of the most eloquent participants—from Thucydides’ classic account of ancient Greek phalanx warfare to a blow-by-blow description of ground fighting against the Iraqi troops in Kuwait during the Gulf War. Keegan gathers more than eighty selections, including Caesar’s Commentaries on the Roman invasion of Britain; the French Knight Jehan de Wavrin at the battle of Agincourt; Davy Crockett in the war against the Creek; Wellington’s dispatch on Waterloo; Hemingway after Caporetto; and Ernie Pyle at Normandy.
“The best military historian of our generation.” –Tom Clancy
“A monumental piece of literary military history.” –Chicago Tribune
A brilliantly edited and comprehensive anthology."—The New York Times Book Review.
THUCYDIDES - The Melian Dialogue
THUCYDIDES - The Final Sea Battle
XENOPHON - The Battle of Cunaxa and Death of Cyrus
XENOPHON - A Plundering Expedition
JULIUS CAESAR - First British Expedition
JOSEPHUS - The Horrors of the Siege
USĀMAH IBN-MUNQIDH - An Arab-Syrian Gentleman
JEAN FROISSART - The Battle of Crécy, 26 August 1346
JEHAN DE WAVRIN - A French Knight’s Account of Agincourt
ANDREW WHEATCROFT - The Fall of Constantinople
DIEGO HURTADO DE MENDOZE - Such Botching, Disorder and Chaos
FRANCESCO BALBI DI CORREGGIO - The Siege of Malta
GEORGE PEELE (?1558 — 1596) - Farewell to Arms
FATHER PAUL RAGUENEAU - An Attack by Iroquois Warriors
WILLIAM DUNBAR - Braddock at the Monongahela
ROBERT SOUTHEY (1774 — 1843) - The Battle of Blenheim
ANNA MYERS - The Revolution Remembered (1)
JOHN SCOTT OF AMWELL (1730 — 1793) - The Drum
JACOB ZIMMERMAN - The Revolution Remembered (2)
DAVID CROCKETT - Davy Crockett
JOHN D. HUNTER - Captivity Among the Indians
THOMAS CAMPBELL (1777-1844) - Hohenlinden
SERGEANT WILLIAM LAWRENCE - Fugitive and Recruit 1804 — 1806
SERGEANT WILLIAM LAWRENCE - Badajoz March — April 1812
A GENTLEMAN VOLUNTEER - The Battle of Vitorio
VICTOR HUGO (1802-1885) - Russia 1812
PRIVATE WHEELER - The Letters of Private Wheeler
DUKE OF WELLINGTON - Wellington’s Waterloo Despatch
JAMES BODELL - A Soldier’s View of Empire
HENRY CLIFFORD - Clifford in the Crimea
COLIN FREDERICK CAMPBELL - Letters from Camp
W. H. FITCHETT - The Relief of Lucknow
LIEUTENANT-COLONEL FREMANTLE - The Fremantle Diary
STEPHEN CRANE (1871-1900) - War is Kind
ELIZABETH B. CUSTER - General Custer
RUDYARD KIPLING (1865 — 1936) - Tommy
ISANDHLWANA AND RORKE’S DRIFT, 1879 - Four eyewitness accounts
SIR HENRY NEWBOLT (1862 — 1938) - Vitaï Lampada
STEPHEN GRAHAM - How the News of War Came to a Village on the Chinese frontier
THOMAS HARDY (1840 — 1028) - In Time of ‘The Breaking of Nations’
ERWIN ROMMEL - Infantry Attacks
COMPTON MACKENZIE - Gallipoli Memories
JOHN MCCRA E. (1872 — 1918) - In Flanders Fields
JOHN GLUBB - A Soldier’s Diary of the Great War
BRIGADIER-GENERAL E. L. SPEARS - Prelude to Victory
W. B. YEATS - An Irish Airman Foresees His Death
ROBERT GRAVES - Goodbye to All That
ERNEST HEMINGWAY - Wounded (I)
SIEGFRIED SASSOON (1886 — 1967) - The Hero
SIEGFRIED SASSOON (1886 — 1967) - The General
WILFRED OWEN (1893 — 1918) - Anthem for Doomed Youth
JOHN MASTERS - Bugles aud a Tiger
ALEXANDER STAHLBERG - Bounden Duty (I)
TIM BISHOP - One Young Soldier
BRUCE SHAND - Previous Engagements
WINSTON CHURCHILL - BBC Broadcast, London, 19 May 1940
STUART MILNER-BARRY - Codebreakers
KEITH DOUGLAS (1920 — 44) - Aristocrats
ALEXANDER STAHLBERG - Bounden Duty (2)
GEYR VON SCHWEPPENBURG - On the Other Side of the Hill
MARIE-LOUISE OSMONT - Normandy Diary
ERNIE PYLE - Battle and Breakout in Normandy
DAVID SMILEY - Albanian Assignment
FRANKLIN LINDSAY - Beacons in the Night
ALEXANDER STAHLBERG - Bounden Duty (3)
GEORGE MACDONALD FRASER - Quartered Safe Out Here
WILLIAM LAURENCE - Bombing Nagasaki
C. W. BOWMAN - Red Thunder, Tropic Lightning
JAMES FENTON - The Fall of Saigon