Customer Reviews

Encyclopedia of Invasions and Conquests: From Ancient Times to the Present

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

 

 

The author's interpretations of many described historical events are exceptionally biased and most of the given references are outdated. The book suffers from a rather strange for an encyclopaedia presentation style (language), very low quality of illustrations and an unfortunate choice of alphabetical listing of topics.

This is NOT a book for a serious reader. The choice of language, style in particular, is surprising for an encyclopedia, and more suitable for an early teen book. Redundancies are abundant, especially in the first two chapters. Here subsequent articles repeatedly cover the same subject, e.g. Alexander the Great and his deeds or the expansion of Rome, etc.. In part, this is due to the unfortunate alphabetical organization of the data that leads to going back and forth in time and revisiting the same ethnic groups more than once within the same time period. Some entries just do not fall under the author's definition of "invasion" and "conquest", but are short biographies of prominent historical figures.

The treatment of the World War II period is highly biased and outdated and reads like a carry-over from the Cold War period. In particular, the Nazi invasion of the Ukraine and Belorussia is described as having been warmly received by the locals. This is an utter distortion of historical events. Indeed, the western Ukraine has been rebellious throughout the Communist era and general Vlasoff has organized an army that fought along with the occupants against the Red Army (but this is not mentioned in the text). However, it has never been representative of the whole Ukranian and Belorussian population that incurred tremendous losses during the occupation. The fact is that the partisan war against Nazi in Belorussia has taken the guerilla-type warfare to a new level and simply remains unprecedented. The Nazi failure to capture Moscow is interpreted as the result of their inability to cope with the harsh winter that year, rather than due to the bitter opposition they faced (interestingly, it didn't t prevent Napoleon from doing it despite similarly cold winter a century-and-half earlier). I had mixed feelings having finished these two entries, because I was not sure with whom the author's sympathy was.

I honestly regret that I spent money on this book. It neither a true encyclopedia, nor a decent reference text in history. To readers out there I recommend to take a look at David Eggenberger's "Encyclopedia of Battles...", it is a far, far better reading.

This book was wonderful. It summarized vast amounts of information into concise articles, all of which were quite informative and definately interesting. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in increasing their knowledge of invasions, war and how we keep repeating history !

Paul Davis has written and edited a superb treatment of Invasions throughout history. This book reads like a novel, not an encyclopedia. I could not put it down!! Each subject is dealt with in a fashion that both the academic and general reader will find useful and even exciting. This book belongs on the shelf of every person who loves military history, or just history in general.

A truly comprehensive book - with lots of details about historical invasions - both well-known and little-known. For anyone interested in how the world has become what it is today - this book will shed a lot of light.

I agree with the other reviews that the alphabetical layout is kind of confusing. I found this book good for quick references for dates, historical facts, etc. Some of the details are definitely glossed over. For instance, in summarizing Caesar Augustus, Davis describes him as a 'benevolent dictator' and states "Rarely has one man exercised so much positive influence on the world". In some ways this is true, but he never details the fact that Augustus was a big supporter of the Gladiator games, and worked to increase their scope and bloodletting, including the public torture and execution of prisoners and criminals. In all the chapters on the Romans, he barely notes their reliance on slavery and the brutal spectacle of the Gladiator games. LIkewise in describing Julius Caesars subjugation of the Gauls, which included the massacre of women and children at Alesia.

I also found some of the numerical chapter references missing from the maps. a minor annoyance, but one that should have been obvious to editors. Overall, I enjoy browsing through the book, but would not use it for any in depth study of history.