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Richard Holmes is Professor of Military and Security Studies at Cranfield University and the Royal Military College of Science. He was educated at Cambridge, Northern Illinois, and Reading Universities, and carried out his doctoral research on the French army of the Second Empire. For many years he taught military history at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst.

A celebrated military historian, Richard Holmes is the author of the best-selling and widely acclaimed Tommy and Redcoat: The British Soldier in the Age of Horse and Musket. His dozen other books include Dusty Warriors, Sahib, The Western Front, The Little Field Marshal: Sir John French, The Road to Sedan, Firing Line, The Second World War in Photographs and Fatal Avenue: A Traveller’s History of Northern France and Flanders (also published by Pimlico).

He is general editor of The Oxford Companion to Military History and has presented eight BBC TV series, including ‘War Walks’, ‘The Western Front’ and ‘Battlefields’, and is famous for his hugely successful series ‘Wellington: The Iron Duke’ and ‘Rebels and Redcoats’.


]]> male 1946/03/29 664905 0006531520 9780006531524 3 <![CDATA[Redcoat]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1176915682m/664905.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1176915682s/664905.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/664905.Redcoat 4.19 32 Redcoat, tells us much about Napoleon, Wellington and their senior commanders but far less about the men they led. Holmes aims, in this massively researched history, to redress the balance. He does so by piling up facts, information and anecdotes, many of them culled from memoirs of the period, to illustrate the everyday life of British soldiers in the 18th and 19th centuries, from the Battle of Blenheim to the Crimean War. In the hands of a less gifted historian this might have made for a dry, daunting and overpowering text. Holmes, however, has a sharp eye for the telling details and the memorable stories that bring the past to life. He pays as much attention to the small-scale as to the larger picture: a soldier is promoted because "his beautiful black eyes and whiskers had attracted the notice of his colonel's lady"; Crimea-bound infantrymen play cricket in "what the scorebook calls Sultan's Valley, Asia Minor"; black musician-soldiers enrich the repertoire of a regimental band; a respected military surgeon is revealed, after death, to have been a woman dressed as a man. Yet Holmes is always aware of that larger picture and of the hardships and dangers of the military life. His chapters on the floggings and punishments inflicted on the common soldier and on the terrible wounds that battle could bring--which again make vivid use of period memoirs--are often very moving. Anyone wanting to find out how the ordinary soldier of the 18th and 19th centuries was recruited, how he was drilled, how he fought, how he lived and (often) how he died, need look no further than this impressive work of popular history. --Nick Rennison]]> 3002506 3.90 163 25 2001 382449 0007137524 9780007137527 3 <![CDATA[Tommy: The British Soldier on the Western Front]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1174335658m/382449.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1174335658s/382449.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/382449.Tommy_The_British_Soldier_on_the_Western_Front 3.95 21 Tommy tells the story of the First World War through the experiences of those who fought it. Using previously unseen letters, diaries, memoirs, and poetry from the years 1914-1918, Richard Holmes paints a moving picture of the generation that fought and died in the mud of Flanders. He follows men whose mental health was forever destroyed by shell shock, women who lost husbands and brothers in the same afternoon, and those who wrote at lunchtime and died before tea. Groundbreaking and critically-acclaimed, this book tells the real story of trench warfare, the strength and fallibility of the human spirit, the individuals behind an epic event, and their legacy.</div></div>]]> 3002506 3.90 163 25 2004 180761 0756622107 9780756622107 1 <![CDATA[Weapon: The Complete Visual History of Arms and Armor]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172494280m/180761.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172494280s/180761.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/180761.Weapon_The_Complete_Visual_History_of_Arms_and_Armor 4.38 16 3002506 3.90 163 25 2006 144155 0007137508 9780007137503 4 <![CDATA[Wellington: The Iron Duke]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172162198m/144155.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172162198s/144155.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/144155.Wellington_The_Iron_Duke 3.69 16 3002506 3.90 163 25 2002 1206147 0007137532 9780007137534 1 <![CDATA[Sahib: The British Soldier in India 1750-1914]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1181860185m/1206147.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1181860185s/1206147.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1206147.Sahib_The_British_Soldier_in_India_1750_1914 3.88 8 3002506 3.90 163 25 2006 1493456 0029148510 9780029148518 1 <![CDATA[Acts of War: Behavior of Men in Battle]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1184223015m/1493456.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1184223015s/1493456.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1493456.Acts_of_War_Behavior_of_Men_in_Battle 3.43 7 3002506 3.90 163 25 1986 1360318 0198662092 9780198662099 1 <![CDATA[The Oxford Companion to Military History]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1182985494m/1360318.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1182985494s/1360318.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1360318.The_Oxford_Companion_to_Military_History 4.00 5 3002506 3.90 163 25 2001 1292192 0465030823 9780465030828 2 <![CDATA[In The Footsteps Of Churchill]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1182543968m/1292192.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1182543968s/1292192.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1292192.In_The_Footsteps_Of_Churchill 3.17 6 As one of the most admired political leaders of the twentieth century, Winston Churchill holds iconic status in popular memory. But in this incisive new biography, acclaimed military historian Richard Holmes offers a remarkable reappraisal of Churchill by examining the influences that shaped his character. Drawing upon never-before-seen materials such as letters between the young Churchill and his parents, Holmes paints the most complete portrait to date of the man who stood up to Hitler and led his people to victory against all odds.

Detailing the decisive events of Churchill's life-from his childhood to his experiences in the Boer War through his rapid rise in politics-Holmes demonstrates the central role Churchill's character played in the key decisions of his public life. With an already inflated sense of self, Churchill had several lucky escapes in combat-in the Boer War and in the trenches of WWI-convincing him that he was saved for a reason and was destined for greatness. In the Footsteps of Churchill uncovers a surprisingly different Churchill-both admirable and difficult-through the lens of his character.

]]> 3002506 3.90 163 25 2005 3017953 0563537825 9780563537823 1 <![CDATA[Battlefields of the Second World War]]> http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3017953.Battlefields_of_the_Second_World_War 3.67 3 3002506 3.90 163 25 2001 5818716 0756650275 9780756650278 1 <![CDATA[Battle (Eyewitness Books)]]> http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5818716.Battle 3.00 3 3002506 3.90 163 25 1995