Excellent retelling of the 2nd Punic War with the Cannae legions as a central viewpoint - the Ghosts of the title, though they were augmented with survivors from other lost battles all banished as sort of non-persons to Sicily until Scipio rehabilitated them and in a great twist of history the ones that remained fit after 14 years, annihilated at Zama the survivors of their vanquisher army from Cannae; the story covers the whole Carthaginian Roman conflict, and while less detailed than the Goldsworthy superb monograph, it is extremely well written.

Highly, highly recommended for an introduction/overview to one of the pivotal elements in the history of the Western civilization, since basically the 2nd Punic War victory made Rome the ultimate superpower of the Mediterranean and the crushing of the Hellenistic kingdoms that formalized that followed within a decade, while their reduction to complete subservience or complete annihilation as in the case of Carthage or Corinth followed in due course