Customer Reviews

Empires at War: A Chronological Encyclopedia (3 Vol Set)

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I received this 3-volume set a few days ago, and have not read it all, roughly about one-fourth of it. It is the kind of reading one can dip into at just about any point, and I have read those sections that I was particularly interested in: the near eastern ancient world up to the Alexander, and the empire of Attila. I wish Amazon had the table of contents posted, as that reflects the structure of the books; essentially, that the author uses important battles as his climaxes, with material on strategy, tactics, logistics, etc leading up to the battle descriptions, which are then followed by a discussion of the commanders involved in the battle.

Importantly, the books cover "empires" and not "kingdoms", except as brief background. So Assyria is not covered directly until it becomes an "empire" in the late 8th century BCE, and Byzantium until its fall seems not to be covered directly at all. Roman history essentially begins with Hannibal's invasion, at which point the author apparently deems Rome has become an empire. Though many battles of the Roman Civil Wars of Caesar and Augustus are covered, the Roman Empire itself is covered rather briefly, with Teutoburger Wald and Adrianople being the only battles discussed in detail for the first four centuries CE. (The author uses the BCE, CE dating notation.) Then Chalons is covered in the section on the Huns.

The discussion of Chalons raises some questions I have about the books. The author gives a detailed blow-by-blow account of the battle, whereas several other scholarly books on the subject state that not enough is known about the battle to permit a reconstruction. Since the author gives nary a footnote stating his rationales anywhere in the three volumes, and does not discuss his reasoning in the text itself, it is impossible to tell whether the author's account of Chalons is based on new research, the author's best guess, or just the author's imagination.

Be that as it may, the text of the book reads very easily; I found myself able to bite off huge chunks of it in rather brief sittings. There are also adequate maps and illustrations, but no index. I did note during the discussion of Gaugamela that the author apparently became confused between the left and right wing of the Persian army, and in the discussion of early Egypt he implied that Palestine is to the west of Egypt. So the books must be read with a bit of care, and in fact do not provide a complete military history from 4000 BCE to 1453 CE, but rather detailed snippets of particular times, which, of course, is just what the author intended.

This is a decent survey of ancient warfare. I was very dissappointed due to so many important battles which are missing from the book.

The graphics and maps are POOR quality. For the cost, there should be some color, it should all be printed on higher quality paper, and what is black and white should be of much higher quality.

I found the presentation cumbersome, this is written for upper eschelon military leaders. I spent a long time in the military, I found this to have the feel of arrogant field grade officers' typical approach to report writing, over the academic format I expected.

A lot of important information is lost in translation, and the effort does not feel as though the subjects of the battles which are addressed are appropriately researched or presented.

This set, is WAY too expensive for what you get. Far better to look at individual volumes from the Cambridge Ancient History!

* for cost
* for quality of paper and graphics
*** for battles that are presented
0* for battles missing
* for historical context presentation
** for binding