Authoritative and concise, Warfare in the Western World concentrates on selected campaigns and battles, showing how political and military leaders in the West have used armies to wage war effectively over the last four centuries. The text moves through the centuries, discussing how operational developments and technological improvements eventually led to the concept of total war, first approached in the American Civil War and culminating in the twentieth century's two world wars.

Authoritative and concise, Warfare in the Western World concentrates on selected campaigns and battles, showing how political and military leaders in the West have used armies to wage war effectively over the last four centuries. The text moves through the centuries, discussing how operational developments and technological improvements eventually led to the concept of total war, first approached in the American Civil War and culminating in the twentieth century's two world wars.

The magnum opus of one of America's most respected military historians, The Art of War in the Western World has earned its place as the standard work on how the three major operational components of war--tactics, logistics, and strategy--have evolved and changed over time. This monumental work encompasses 2,500 years of military history, from infantry combat in ancient Greece through the dissolution of the Roman Empire to the Thirty Years' War and from the Napoleonic campaigns through World War II, which Jones sees as the culmination of modern warfare, to the Israeli-Egyptian War of 1973.

In this companion volume to "Western Warfare, 1775-1882," Jeremy Black takes his analysis of modern warfare into the twentieth century. As before, a distinctive feature of the author's approach is the coverage of both land and naval warfare as well as conflict within the West and between Western and non-Western powers. Beginning with the British conquest of Egypt in 1882, this book goes on to examine the Spanish-American War of 1898, the Boer War and the Balkan conflicts leading to world war in 1914. A revisionist account of the First World War is followed by a discussion of Western expansionism in the period to 1936. Chapters on the interwar years and the Second World War lead on to a discussion of the retreat from empire and the advent of Cold War. The narrative closes with the end of the Vietnam War in 1975 and a discussion of the limitations of Western military technique, doctrine and technology. Throughout, the themes of military change and modernization are brought into sharp focus and the revolutionary characteristics of the machination of war in this period are questioned. Jeremy Black offers a new and challenging interpretation of modern warfare that will be required reading not only for students of military history but for all those interested in the impact of war in the making of the modern world.

This is a wide-ranging and comprehensive survey of warfare from the outbreak of the American War of Independence to the British conquest of Egypt. Drawing on both primary and secondary sources this book offers an unrivalled account of civil and international conflicts involving Western powers, integrating both naval and land warfare. This book covers military capability as well as conflict, social and political contexts as well as weaponry, tactics and strategy. As well as examining such major conflicts as the Napoleonic Wars, the Crimean War, the American Civil War and the Wars of German Unification, this book redresses the imbalance of previous treatments by examining other important conflicts, for example, those in Latin America, as well as insurgency and counter-insurgency in Europe. This book's global perspective provides for a more reliable assessment of what constitutes military capability. In so doing, the author challenges the technological determinism and linear conceptions of developments in military science that continue to characterise much of military history. Instead the author reveals a much more complex dynamic, indeed going so far as to question the idea of 'modernity' itself. Bold in scope, and cutting-edge in its interpretations, this book offers much for the student, general reader and professional historian alike.

What is the source of the uniquely Western way of war, the persistent militarism that has made Europe the site of bloodshed throughout history and secured the dominance of the West over the rest of the world? The answer, Doyne Dawson persuasively argues in this groundbreaking new book, is to be found in the very bedrock of Western civilization: ancient Greece and Rome.The Origins of Western Warfare begins with an overview of primitive warfare, showing how the main motivations of prehistoric combat?revenge and honor?set the tone for Greek thinking about questions of war and morality. These ideas, especially as later developed by the Romans, ensured the emergence of a distinctive Western tradition of warfare: dynamic, aggressive, and devastatingly successful when turned against non-Western cultures.Dawson identifies key factors that led Western culture down this particular path. First, the Greeks argued that war could be justified as an instrument of human and divine justice, securing the social and cosmic order. Second, war was seen as a rational instrument of foreign policy. This, probably the most original contribution of the Greeks to military thought, was articulated as early as the fifth century b.c. Finally, Greek military thought was dominated by the principle of ?civic militarism,? in which the ideal state is based upon self-governing citizens trained and armed for war.The Roman version of civic militarism became thoroughly imperial in spirit, and in general, the Romans successfully modified these Greek ideas to serve their expansionist policies. At the end of antiquity, these traditions were passed on to medieval Europe, forming the basis for the just war doctrines of the Church. Later, in early modern Europe, they were fully revived, systematized, and given a basis in natural law?to the benefit of absolute monarchs. For centuries this neoclassical synthesis served the needs of European elites, and echoes of it are still heard in contemporary justifications for war.Providing a careful reconsideration of what the classical sources tell us about Western thinking on fundamental questions of war and peace, The Origins of Western Warfare makes a lasting contribution to our understanding of one of the most persistent and troubling aspects of Western culture.

The Greeks of the classical age invented not only the central idea of Western politics--that the power of state should be guided by a majority of its citizens--but also the central act of Western warfare, the decisive infantry battle. Instead of ambush, skirmish, maneuver, or combat between individual heroes, the Greeks of the fifth century b.c. devised a ferocious, brief, and destructive head-on clash between armed men of all ages. In this bold, original study, Victor Davis Hanson shows how this brutal enterprise was dedicated to the same outcome as consensual government--an unequivocal, instant resolution to dispute. The Western Way of War draws from an extraordinary range of sources--Greek poetry, drama, and vase painting, as well as historical records--to describe what actually took place on the battlefield. It is the first study to explore the actual mechanics of classical Greek battle from the vantage point of the infantryman--the brutal spear-thrusting, the difficulty of fighting in heavy bronze armor which made it hard to see, hear and move, and the fear. Hanson also discusses the physical condition and age of the men, weaponry, wounds, and morale. This compelling account of what happened on the killing fields of the ancient Greeks ultimately shows that their style of armament and battle was contrived to minimize time and life lost by making the battle experience as decisive and appalling as possible. Linking this new style of fighting to the rise of constitutional government, Hanson raises new issues and questions old assumptions about the history of war.

Warfare in the Ancient World explores how civilizations and cultures made war on the battlefields of the Near East and Europe between the rise of civilization in Mesopotamia in the late fourth millenium BC and the fall of Rome. Through a exploration of twenty-six selected battles, military historian Brian Todd Carey surveys the changing tactical relationships between the four weapon systems - heavy and light infantry and hevay and light cavalry - focusing on how shock and missile combat evolved from tentative beginnings in the Bronze Age to the highly developed military organization created by the Romans. The art of warfare reached a very sophisticated level of development during this three millenia span. Commanders fully realized the tactical capabilities of shock and missile combat in large battlefield situations. Modern principles of war, like the primacy of the offensive, mass, and economy of force, were understood by pre-modern generals and applied on battlefields throughout the period. Through the use of dozens of multiphase tactical maps, this fascinating introduction to the art of war during western civilizationÕs ancient and classical periods pulls together the primary and secondary sources and creates a powerful historical narrative. The result is a synthetic work that will be essential reading for students and armchair historians alike.