Contains more than 140 essays that provide information about weaponry, tactics, and models of warfare since ancient times and examine the way they have been expressed socially, politically, and artistically; and includes research tools, time lines, maps, and illustrations.

An international reference to the weapons, tactics, and strategies that have been used from earliest history to the present.

John Keegan's groundbreaking portrayal of the common soldier in the heat of battle -- a masterpiece that explores the physical and mental aspects of warfare The Face of Battle is military history from the battlefield: a look at the direct experience of individuals at the "point of maximum danger." Without the myth-making elements of rhetoric and xenophobia, and breaking away from the stylized format of battle descriptions, John Keegan has written what is probably the definitive model for military historians. And in his scrupulous reassessment of three battles representative of three different time periods, he manages to convey what the experience of combat meant for the participants, whether they were facing the arrow cloud at the battle of Agincourt, the musket balls at Waterloo, or the steel rain of the Somme. The Face of Battle is a companion volume to John Keegan's classic study of the individual soldier, The Mask of Command: together they form a masterpiece of military and human history.

This richly illustrated book explores over seven hundred years of European warfare, from the time of Charlemagne to the end of the middle ages (c.1500). The period covered has a distinctive character in military history. It was an age when organization for war was integral to social structure, when the secular aristocrat was by necessity also a warrior, and whose culture was profoundly influenced by martial ideas. Twelve scholars, experts in their own fields, have contributed to this finely illustrated book. It is divided into two parts. Part I seeks to explore the experience of war viewed chronologically with separate chapters on, for instance, the Viking age, on the wars and expansion of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, on the Crusades and on the great Hundred Years War between England and France. The chapters in Part II trace thematically the principal developments in the art of warfare; in fortification and siege craft; in the role of armoured cavalrymen; in the employment of mercenary forces; the advent of gunpowder artillery; and of new skills in navigation and shipbuilding. In both parts of the book, the overall aim has been to offer the general reader an impression, not just of the where and the when of great confrontations, but above all of the social experience of warfare in the middle ages, and of the impact of its demands on human resources and human endurance.

Hono sapiens, homo pugnans, and so it has been since the beginning of recorded history. In the Middle Ages, especially, armed conflict and the military life were so much a part of the political and cultural development that a general account of this period is, in large measure, a description of how men went to war.

Contains more than 140 essays that provide information about weaponry, tactics, and models of warfare since ancient times and examine the way they have been expressed socially, politically, and artistically; and includes research tools, time lines, maps, and illustrations.

Osprey's elite title on the rise and fall of European medieval cavalry during an 800 year period. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire there was a decline in professional cavalry forces, and infantry dominated in the Germanic successor barbarian kingdoms. In the Carolingian and Norman periods from the 9th to the 11th centuries, under the impact of Viking, Saracen and Magyar advances, the cavalry arm gradually expanded from the small remaining aristocratic elite. Even so, the supposedly complete dominance of the knight in the 12th and 13th centuries is grossly exaggerated, as integrated cavalry and infantry tactics were nearly always the key to success. This is the first in a two-part treatment of medieval tactics, covering developments in both cavalry and infantry tactics. Throughout the period there was a steady evolution of training in both individual and unit skills, of armor and weapons, and thus of tactics on the battlefield. This book covers key moments in this story of evolution from Hastings in 1066 to Legnano in 1176. It also details the later development of cavalry versus cavalry tactics and the two key set piece battles of Bouvines in 1214 and Pelagonia in 1259, the former an example of abject failure of cavalry tactics and the latter a stunning success.

The Medieval era was a period of huge variety and invention in siege warfare. Before the use of cannon and other gun-powder artillery, siege engines relied on assorted sources of power, from torsion 'energy storage' systems to man-power, counter-balances and others. This book reveals how technological traditions from the Graeco-Roman world, Persia, India and above all China made a massive contribution to siege warfare techniques. It also covers developments in military engineering, such as mining, counter-mining, the breaking of walls, the use of noxious and chemical fumes and the use of fire-weapons.

The only book available that covers this subject, Warfare in the Ancient Near East is a groundbreaking and fascinating study of ancient near Eastern military history from the Neolithic era to the middle Bronze Ages. Drawing on an extensive range of textual, artistic and archaeological data, William J. Hamblin synthesizes current knowledge and offers a detailed analysis of the military technology, ideology and practices of Near Eastern warfare. Paying particular attention to the earliest known examples of holy war ideaology in Mesopotamia and Egypt, Hamblin focuses on: * recruitment and training of the infantry * the logistics and weaponry of warfare * the shift from stone to metal weapons * the role played by magic * narratives of combat and artistic representations of battle * the origins and development of the chariot as military transportation * fortifications and siegecraft *developments in naval warfare. Beautifully illustrated, including maps of the region, this book is essential for experts and non-specialists alike.