Customer Reviews

World History of Warfare (Tactics & Strategies)

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World History of Warfare
by Christon I Archer, John R. Ferris, Holger H Herwig, Timothy H. E. Travers

Review by Michael W. Brandt

The World History of Warfare is designed to be a textbook for introductory college courses in military history. I think that the authors have exceeded this modest goal.

It should be understood that the authors of this book took on an enormous task. They condensed the history and evolution of thousands of years of warfare into 591 pages of text.For someone who needs a reference book on the development and evolution of warfare, this is a very useful text. It presents the development of arms, weapons and tactics of warfare against the flow of history. This process enables the student of history to have a background understanding of the effect of warfare on the period he is studying. It is worldwide in scope and gives a perspective which should be kept in mind by any historian.

There are four authors, and if you read carefully you can sense different tones between them. I personally found the last section about more recent warfare a bit weaker than the preceding three. It is a superior book for someone who needs a reference book covering the development and evolution of warfare.

One thing which I did not find recognized was the fact that despite the terrible effects of warfare, such periods were often times of enormous creativity in a variety of areas. I would also stress the fact that each of these four authors could have written a 500 page book on the period they covered.

It is therefore a valuable book for any library. The book is also organized and concise enough for the reader to quickly find and identify the periods he wishes to investigate with regard to warfare. I also think it is a book few could read without learning a great deal from.

Warfare is more and more treated as an unpleasant business that should simply go away. There is no indication that this is going to happen, but if it does a clear understanding of its history, circumstances, development, and causes will be the key to such a change. This book is an invaluable aid to any who are seriously interested in warfare, its affects, and a possible solution.

While the book is somewhat slow going at first, it offers a broad-scoped and excellent view of a few themes of war across a large scope of space and time, looking at the experience of soldiers, the interaction of armies and the societies that wield them, as well as the problems of technology, tactics, and force projection. Especially excellent are the stories told about non-Western or peripheral nations (for personal reasons, I am particularly fond of reading about the Chilean way of war, for example), which compliment the well-worn paths over more commonly discussed military topics. That said, this book is not as well-organized as it should be, and jumps from sub-topic to sub-topic way too quickly. Its case studies are well done, though often a bit repetitive, and though it is quite nice to discuss both land and sea (as well as, more recently, air) warfare within the same book, the book is a lot to take in in one reading. That said, if one is looking for a comprehensive history of warfare which is incisive as well as as balanced in perspective, this book is an excellent place to start, flaws and all.

This is a great overview of the history of warfare from earliest times to 2001. Non-western military matters are also included. A good mix of theory and examples, nicely written.
My only complaint isthat the chapter on post 1945 warfare is very broad, and leaves out detail. Very little was included on the problems the Soviets faced in Afghanistan, or the Bosian conflict.

For a textbook, the important questions are did it appear on time without problems and was it easy to find? Yes to both.