Art of War in the Middle Ages: A.D. 378-1515 [Paperback]

C. W. C. Oman (Author), Charles William Chadwick Oman (Author), John H. Beeler (Editor)

Product Details

• Paperback: 194 pages
• Publisher: Cornell University Press; Revised edition (December 1960)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0801490626
• ISBN-13: 978-0801490620
• Product Dimensions: 7.3 x 5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #263,747 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Readable, insightful, and informative., April 29, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Art of War in the Middle Ages: A.D. 378-1515 (Paperback)

Oman provides an excellent, well-researched look at the arms, tactics, and strategies of various medieval armies. He covers the rise of the era of heavy calvary, and describes how it was replaced by the English longbow and the Swiss pikeman. His discussion of the various battlefield tactics unique to each army, as illustrated through maps of many of the major battles, proves both informative and entertaining. This is by far the most "readable" and authoritative book on the subject I have read to date.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars immensely readable, July 31, 2001

By 

James Jen (Sands Point, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Art of War in the Middle Ages: A.D. 378-1515 (Paperback)

This is an excellent and fascinating work. I highly recomend it for anyone interested in warfare, the middle ages, or both. It is full of well-researched insights and synthesizes and provides a broad general framework for understanding warfare in this period. Serious scholars or those seeking to use this as a textbook should note that the original version that forms the basis of this book was written a century ago and is probably outdated, despite the rewritten portions. However, the greatest strength of this book is that it is extraordinarily well-written, and a pleasure to read.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Don't Fight The Last War!, June 21, 2008

By 

T. Warner "SPQR" (USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Art of War in the Middle Ages: A.D. 378-1515 (Paperback)

An excellent exploration of how people always want to fight the last war. Whenever someone in the Middle Ages would come up with a new tactical innovation, they would dominate for awhile before being swept aside by the next innovation. Everyone thought that their winning method was the end all solution to victory in war and therefore refused to change. The French, British, Swiss, Spanish, Italians, Poles, Hungarians and Bohemians are all shown staying with what has always worked even when it has ceased to work. The Byzantine are held up as the exception to this pattern in that they used tremendous skill and flexibility to preserve their empire against terrible odds for more than 500 years. The book also points out very well that, other than among the Byzantines, the sophistication of tactics sunk to a very low level after the Roman period. Tactical thinking was crude in the extreme (sending a small force around behind the enemy was considered bold and brilliant). Strategy was nonexistent until near the end of the period. First written as an essay in 1885 and later expanded into a book. Was very influential in the early 20th Century. The book is on Patton's reading list.