World History of Warfare

This was my textbook for a class on Military History. This book is engagingly written, well organized and served as a thought provoking prompt for each 2 hour class. Not for the casual reader, but more for someone sincerely interested in Military things such as what is war, and how does one define a total victory? I really enjoyed this book and have kept it on my bookshelf for reference.

I read this book for a class. However it was very readable and informative.

The book covers The Origins of Warfare to the Third World Wars. And in the preface the Authors state about their book that: "It does not simply repeat what other texts have argued but offers fresh views on the troubled past of our world."I belive the Authors have succeded in this task.The book is well written, but remember that military history in general sometimes can be a real challenge, and demanding to understand.I recommend this book to anyone interested in military history.

Needed it for school.

This a very thick book, and I am just beginning to wade through it. (It's basically a text book.)It has VERY FEW "plates" (maps, photos, drawings). I would wish it had many more than it does.It looks to be interesting reading for someone really into warfare, but without a few more images to help "visualize" the prose, this is going to be a very dry read.626 pages, 16 maps, 25 B&W plates ---- I suspect I will be doing a lot of supplemental research on Wikipedia and on Google & Google Images.

Technical and brief. Still a descent read if your looking for a book that covers the entire history of war.

For a textbook, the important questions are did it appear on time without problems and was it easy to find? Yes to both.

While the book is somewhat slow going at first, it offers a broad-scoped and excellent view of a few themes of war across a large scope of space and time, looking at the experience of soldiers, the interaction of armies and the societies that wield them, as well as the problems of technology, tactics, and force projection. Especially excellent are the stories told about non-Western or peripheral nations (for personal reasons, I am particularly fond of reading about the Chilean way of war, for example), which compliment the well-worn paths over more commonly discussed military topics. That said, this book is not as well-organized as it should be, and jumps from sub-topic to sub-topic way too quickly. Its case studies are well done, though often a bit repetitive, and though it is quite nice to discuss both land and sea (as well as, more recently, air) warfare within the same book, the book is a lot to take in in one reading. That said, if one is looking for a comprehensive history of warfare which is incisive as well as as balanced in perspective, this book is an excellent place to start, flaws and all.

Great read but a little arid. The book sees so much history in so little time that the bigger view is really important and is somewhat forgotten a little in the last chapters.