Enter your mobile number or email address below and we'll send you a link to download the free Kindle App. Then you can start reading Kindle books on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.

  • Apple
  • Android
  • Windows Phone
  • Android

To get the free app, enter your email address or mobile phone number.
Download to your computer
Kindle Cloud Reader
Facebook Twitter Pinterest <Embed>
Qty:1
  • List Price: $15.95
  • Save: $5.44 (34%)
FREE Shipping on orders with at least $25 of books.
Only 15 left in stock (more on the way).
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available.
The Battles that Changed ... has been added to your Cart
Want it Saturday, April 23? Order within and choose Saturday Delivery at checkout. Details
Ship to:
Select a shipping address:
To see addresses, please
or
Please enter a valid US zip code.
or
FREE Shipping on orders over $25.
Used: Very Good | Details
Sold by Archives Books Inc
Fulfilled by Amazon
Condition: Used: Very Good
Comment: No markings throughout. Nice clean copy. Family owned since 1989. Selling online since 1995. Exceptional shopping experience, 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed!

Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) is a service we offer sellers that lets them store their products in Amazon's fulfillment centers, and we directly pack, ship, and provide customer service for these products. Something we hope you'll especially enjoy: FBA items qualify for FREE Shipping and .

If you're a seller, Fulfillment by Amazon can help you increase your sales. We invite you to learn more about Fulfillment by Amazon .

Sorry, there was a problem.

There was an error retrieving your Wish Lists. Please try again.

Sorry, there was a problem.

List unavailable.
Have one to sell? Sell on Amazon
Flip to back Flip to front
Listen Playing... Paused   You're listening to a sample of the Audible audio edition.
Learn more
See all 3 images

The Battles that Changed History (Dover Military History, Weapons, Armor) Paperback – March 27, 2000

by
Fletcher Pratt (Author)
› Visit Amazon's Fletcher Pratt Page
Find all the books, read about the author, and more.
See search results for this author
Are you an author? Learn about Author Central
Fletcher Pratt (Author)
4.2 out of 5 stars 17 customer reviews
See all 6 formats and editions Hide other formats and editions
Price
New from Used from
Kindle
"Please retry"
$11.00
— —
Hardcover
"Please retry"
$29.99
$29.99 $24.99
Paperback
"Please retry"
$10.51
$6.52 $0.50
Mass Market Paperback
"Please retry"
—
— $4.00
Best Books of the Month
See the Best Books of the Month
Want to know our Editors' picks for the best books of the month? Browse Best Books of the Month, featuring our favorite new books in more than a dozen categories.
$10.51 FREE Shipping on orders with at least $25 of books. Only 15 left in stock (more on the way). Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available.

Frequently Bought Together

  • The Battles that Changed History (Dover Military History, Weapons, Armor)
  • +
  • 100 Decisive Battles: From Ancient Times to the Present
  • +
  • The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World: From Marathon to Waterloo (Dover Military History, Weapons, Armor)
Total price: $39.40
Buy the selected items together
NO_CONTENT_IN_FEATURE
China
Engineering & Transportation Books
Discover books for all types of engineers, auto enthusiasts, and much more. Learn more

Product Details

  • Series: Dover Military History, Weapons, Armor
  • Paperback: 368 pages
  • Publisher: Dover Publications (March 28, 2000)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 048641129X
  • ISBN-13: 978-0486411293
  • Product Dimensions: 5.4 x 0.7 x 8.5 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #931,159 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

    •  Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?

Customers Viewing This Page May Be Interested In These Sponsored Links

  (What's this?)
null

Customer Reviews

Top Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 starsGreat popular history writing
By David A. Ross on May 31, 2001
Format: Paperback
Like A SHORT HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR, Pratt's BATTLES THAT CHANGED HISTORY is a terrific entry-level volume, especially for the young reader. He combines a snappy, thrilling writing style with a keen ability to explain complex historical situations and an original thesis about the role of military power in world history.
The key to this book is the phrase "Changed History" in the title. In his introduction, Pratt takes pains to distinguish his list of battles from those of the progenitor of the genre, Sir Edward Creasy, whose "Fifteen Decisive Battles" provided the inspiration for Pratt's work. Pratt notes that so many famous Western battles (e.g. Hastings or Tours) actually played a defensive or reinforcing role in history rather than "changing history." This insight leads Pratt to choose some battles that many might view as eccentric (e.g. Beneventum, the original "Pyrrhic victory", rather than, say, Zama, which ended the Second Punic War). It is Pratt's rationale for these choices, expressed in clear, crisp prose, that makes this book so valuable for younger readers in need of a boost in their motivation to read history.
Comment 43 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
Report abuse
2.0 out of 5 starsThe Bottles that Changed Histery
By Brian Jones on July 14, 2013
Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
I have to split this review into to parts: the content and the presentation.

The content was good; the author breaks down the battles and puts in some background to put things in perspective; it's not just a dry listing of locations and body counts. I liked that he added in some political backstory on why some of these battles occurred, and why he considers them history changing. I also liked that he didn't just pick the 'big three' (or five or seven), but really tried to examine history before and after the events and explain the why. He has a wry sense of humor that shows in some of the descriptions of the key decision makers (and their decisions).

If this was all there was, this would be a four or five star book. However...

Whoever edited this book for the Oxford City Press should be fired without references. I suspect that this was supposed to be a scholarly work. Unfortunately, there are so many grammatical errors and such convoluted sentence structures that it is hard to read; sometimes I had to read a paragraph three or four times to figure out what was intended, what word was left out, or what the auto-correct function inserted by mistake. Just because the spell checker stops underlining words does NOT mean that it is correct. For instance (p 187): "He had little concept of the king of man Howe was up against."

For convolution, on page 188, "...a stroke that would have been decisive. Here it was decisive also, but in the contrary sense."

For poor editing, the author introduces the work 'homonoia' on page 2 (which I suppose is Greek), but he doesn't explain that it means "the unity of concord" until 15 pages and several references later.Read more ›
Comment 9 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
Report abuse
5.0 out of 5 starsAn overview of world history
By Dstarr on March 11, 2011
Format: Paperback Verified Purchase
The title of Fletcher Pratt's book, The Battles that Changed History, sets forth Pratt's theme. He believes that battle can be decisive, the underdog can win, changing the course of history for good. The book is twenty examples supporting this theme. He takes classical Greece versus the Persian Empire for his first example. The Persian Empire was much much larger than the Hellenic city states. Despite smashing Greek victories at Marathon and Salamis, the Persians survived and prospered and by the end of the Peloponnesian War Sparta was accepting Persian subsidies to prosecute the war against Athens. Sparta won and imposed a crushing peace treaty. Pratt feels that in the ordinary course of events, the surviving Greek city states would have been gradually absorbed into the Persian empire, leading to quite a different history from what happened. In real history, Alexander came upon the scene, invaded and defeated the Persian Empire in head to head combat, leading to a Hellenistic Age, where Greek culture dominated the entire Mediterranean basin.
Pratt is a lively writer, with many good history books and much good science fiction and fantasy to his credit. He describes the era, the players, and the background as well as the events. He has some wonderful turns of phrase, such as "The Greeks had to go imperial to make it stand up." or "Within the omens instantly became favorable. The Romans poured out like a swarm of hornets..."
I first read this book in high school. Many years, and a college degree in history later, it's still good, and Pratt's basic theme is still very tenable. His knowledge of his subjects and their periods is very deep.
Comment 9 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
Report abuse
5.0 out of 5 starsAn excellent read
By J. Anderson on May 24, 2009
Format: Paperback
Few writers can make history read like a story while at the same time educate with a multitude of facts. Pratt is one and this book is an excellent example.
Comment 9 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
Report abuse
5.0 out of 5 starsBetter than Creasy
By Bookworm64 on November 8, 2015
Format: Paperback Verified Purchase
This is a good read, much better than Creasy's Decisive Battles (few of which were really decisive at the time; just turned out that way). He goes into far more about the battles, and some are in fact extended campaigns (Quebec and Quiberon Bay, for example). He does come off a little rough and colloquial at times, but it goes smoothly, and explains far more why the battles happened and why they mattered. Why is actually more important than what happened. Vicksburg is in, because that had a significant strategic effect on the Civil War in cutting the CSA in half, preventing supplies and reinforcements from the west. Gettysburg might be a popular choice, but it decided nothing for all the attention paid to it, so it overshadowed Vicksburg.
Comment Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
Report abuse

Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 starsA clear, fun-to-read popular history

Great stuff. This is an accessible, fun read for any student of military history. Good choice of battles, effective descriptions of what made them important, and how the winners... Read more

Published 2 months ago by James Hemphill
5.0 out of 5 starsShe was happy with it

This was a gift for my daughter for her thesis research. She was happy with it.

Published 2 months ago by Sc
4.0 out of 5 starsGood find

I enjoyed reading this after finding it on Kindle. The copy I bought at college in the early sixties had disintegrated

Published 11 months ago by S. Gibbs
3.0 out of 5 starsThree Stars

Not quite what I thought it would be, but it is interesting.

Published 14 months ago by Nathan Vigil
5.0 out of 5 starsGreat look at battles/campaigns that altered the direction the world's...

Great look at battles/campaigns that altered the direction the world's history took and how it led to the evolution of warfare.

Published 18 months ago by Robert
1.0 out of 5 starsPoorly written

Difficult to fathom the author's reasons for picking the 16 battles he did. Sometimes he made the case, other times such as #8, Leyden and the Foundation of Sea Power he failed... Read more

Published on March 15, 2014 by Robert L. Roos
5.0 out of 5 starsOne of my favorites ...

An excellent read. Walk along with the author as he relates the ins and outs of various battles that, quite literally, changed the course of history. Read more

Published on January 16, 2014 by J. K. Quackenbush
4.0 out of 5 starsBook missing pages.

My book was missing thirty pages. That's right, thirty pages were simply missing (225 through 256). Very strange. Easy solution is to return it. Read more

Published on January 27, 2013 by Professor J
5.0 out of 5 starsAn unexpected all-time favorite

This book was an unexpected goldmine. It's not just one of my favorite military history books, it's one of my favorite books. Read more

Published on February 15, 2012 by F. Schaaf
5.0 out of 5 starsworth reading

good book for understanding of battles and campaigns that affected western civilization. read with the view that currently western civilization is at a crisis point. Read more

Published on January 22, 2012 by searu

Set up an Amazon Giveaway

The Battles that Changed History (Dover Military History, Weapons, Armor)
Amazon Giveaway allows you to run promotional giveaways in order to create buzz, reward your audience, and attract new followers and customers. Learn more
This item: The Battles that Changed History (Dover Military History, Weapons, Armor)
Set up a giveaway

There's a problem loading this menu right now.

Learn more about Amazon Prime.