Scottish Battles: from Mons Graupius to Culloden [Paperback]

John Sadler (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 21, 2001

Scottish history has been shaped and defined by a series of great battles - Bannockburn, Flodden and Culloden have a resonance and impact far beyond Scotland itself. In the first full military history for many years, John Sadler weaves chronicle, narrative, and analysis together in a masterly way, recreating the drama and passion of centuries past.

Editorial Reviews

Review

'A thrilling account of a turbulent nation' - Scotland on Sunday --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Canongate U.S. (June 21, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 086241508X
• ISBN-13: 978-0862415082
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,948,786 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Great Rainy Day Read, May 5, 2000

By 

Kevin Tompkins - See all my reviews

This review is from: Scottish Battles: from Mons Graupius to Culloden (Paperback)

Sadler gives a taste of bloody Scottish history that urges you to dig deeper. Each battle is covered in depth, with maps and eyewitness accounts whenever possible. Flavor is added with tactics, weaponry, and a historical review for the period of each battle. My only complaint is that a full map of Scotland and northern England is not included- this makes it difficult to follow accounts of the Border Wars and the maneuvering leading up to each contest.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Great Topic But..., July 1, 2000

By 

Captain Cook (Leeward to the Sandwich Islands) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Scottish Battles: from Mons Graupius to Culloden (Paperback)

This is an interesting topic, but unfortunately this work has a scissors and paste feel to it, as if it were thrown together from miscellaneous sources without any deep understanding of the subject. The structure is very anecdotal and episodic and the chronology jumps around willy-nilly without any good reason. The lack of balance in the work can be demonstated by the fact that the flashy but insignificant military campaigns of Montrose get 34 pages while the vital campaigns conducted by Bruce up to the Battle of Bannockburn are peremptorily dealt with in less than 3 pages. Bannockburn is adequately covered, but the campaigns leading up to this crowning victory were perhaps even more important.

Instead of having his own clear ideas of the relevant importance of different periods and events and seeking out his sources accordingly, Sadler's writing seems sadly determined by whatever sources are at hand.

Another point about the work is the writing style or lack of it. Unable to make the events interesting or dramatic by a sincere and clear style, the author time and again throws in anachronistic cliches and coinages in an attempt to sound clever and informed. To give a few examples: on page 126, he talks about a group of royalist camp followers being "casually butchered" as if this was some sort of spaghetti Western. On the same page we have the anachronistic and awkward phrase: "Baillie was obeyed to 'work out his notice'" as if his superiors were going to 'take away his key to the executive washroom'. This kind of trite phrasing just detracts from the historical tone, a cardinal error as one of the reasons many of us read history is to temporarily escape from the modern world. On the opposite page we have the unfortunate coinage, the "reformadoes", sounding more like a cheesy snack than reorganized companies of troops. The single worst item of his style however must be the incredibly stupid tautology repeatwd on almost every page where he refers to a "commanded body of shot" or a "commanded body of horse" as if it were the exception rather than the rule for groups of soldiers to be commanded.

Scottish battles is a fascinating topic. If you are not too fussy about the writing style, even this book can be quite readable in the same way as a magazine on the toilet, however, the more I read it the more the style irritates me. Hopefully, something a lot better written will come along soon.