Customer Reviews

Dictionary of Wars

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Covers more than 1,700 "global conflicts, civil wars, mutinies, punitive expeditions, undeclared wars, rebellions, and revolutions".
The great and famous wars are treated in admirably concise and readable style, but the main interest is the smaller and more obscure conflicts, for which you would need a shelf of books otherwise.
From the tangled and confusing animosities of the Balkans, to the many Turko-Persian Wars, numerous Roman Civil Wars, and Canadian Rebellions, to our own Vietnam War (interestingly treated as another, if larger, installment in fighting going back over a thousand years), every significant war is covered, briefly but comprehensively, with the political aspects covered and main players given their due (or blame).
This book will find use by the general reader of military history, as well as militaria collectors and other interested in sorting out the conflicts.
(The numerical rating above is a default setting within Amazon's format. This reviewer does not employ numerical ratings.)

This is a fantastic book. Practically every war of any kind is included (within the limits of historical information). Since most of the history of the world changes due to wars, it's basically the history of the world in one volume. Re the comment on dates by Mr. Clark: come on, no researcher worth his or her salt is going to use a book like this for a reference. This is for the layperson who wants a concise history, and it delivers very well.

Now in its third edition with a double handfull of new wars added, you could easily get the impression that warfare is the natural state of mankind with peace being only a few short interludes before the killing starts again.

This book covers about 2,000 wars spread over about 4,000 years and covered in 621 pages. That means that each war can only get a short amount of space. All of World War II gets covered in about 5 pages. As such this is an excellent reference when you need to look up some reference to an unknown war such as the Perak War or the Damascene War. It's usually enough to let you know where things fit into history.

I can help but have just a couple of complaints. There is a Geographical Index, and a General Index. I'd like to also see an index by time line. Further there are some references in places that could stand a little more explanation. For instance the closing sentence in the writeup on the Peninsular War says (in part) that it 'detonated revolutions throughout Latin America.' That would be a good place to put in the names of the revolutions it was talking about.

All in all, my complaints are minor. This is a magnificant work with an incredible amount of information.

The information concerning dates of wars are in question. Due to the inefficiency of the work relating to dates, this publication can be costly to a researcher.