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The Seventy Great Battles in History
Twenty-five military historians from around the world describe the decisive conflicts that shaped history from the fifth century BC to the present.
Cannae and Agincourt, Waterloo and Gettysburg, Stalingrad and Midway, the Tet Offensive….The latest book in the popular Seventies series assesses the great battles and conflicts in history from the past twenty-five centuries, and discusses the effects they have had on the development of states and civilizations.
Organized chronologically into seven parts, the book encompasses the ancient and medieval worlds as well as the wars of the past hundred years, including the conflict in Iraq. The contributors analyze not just the greatest land battles of all time, but sieges such as Constantinople (1453) and Tenochtitlán (1521); naval battles such as Actium (31 BC), Trafalgar (1805), and Tsushima (1905); and the crucial conflicts in the air during the Battle of Britain (1940) and the American attack on Japan (1945).
The coverage is truly worldwide in scope, from the battle in Teutoburg Forest in AD 9, where the Germans defeated the Romans, to Hakata Bay in 1281, where the Japanese defeated the Mongols, and the first battle of Panipat in 1526, where the Mughals conquered Hindustan. The reader is presented with a masterly overview of advances in military technology, and of the changing tactics and strategy of battlefield commanders from Hannibal to Napoleon, Montgomery, and Eisenhower.
Richly illustrated in color with hundreds of photographs, contemporary paintings, and specially commissioned battle plans and maps, this will be essential reading for anyone interested in military history. 350 illustrations, 230 in color.
Cannae and Agincourt, Waterloo and Gettysburg, Stalingrad and Midway, the Tet Offensive….The latest book in the popular Seventies series assesses the great battles and conflicts in history from the past twenty-five centuries, and discusses the effects they have had on the development of states and civilizations.
Organized chronologically into seven parts, the book encompasses the ancient and medieval worlds as well as the wars of the past hundred years, including the conflict in Iraq. The contributors analyze not just the greatest land battles of all time, but sieges such as Constantinople (1453) and Tenochtitlán (1521); naval battles such as Actium (31 BC), Trafalgar (1805), and Tsushima (1905); and the crucial conflicts in the air during the Battle of Britain (1940) and the American attack on Japan (1945).
The coverage is truly worldwide in scope, from the battle in Teutoburg Forest in AD 9, where the Germans defeated the Romans, to Hakata Bay in 1281, where the Japanese defeated the Mongols, and the first battle of Panipat in 1526, where the Mughals conquered Hindustan. The reader is presented with a masterly overview of advances in military technology, and of the changing tactics and strategy of battlefield commanders from Hannibal to Napoleon, Montgomery, and Eisenhower.
Richly illustrated in color with hundreds of photographs, contemporary paintings, and specially commissioned battle plans and maps, this will be essential reading for anyone interested in military history. 350 illustrations, 230 in color.
304 pages, Hardcover
First published October 1, 2005
About the author
Jeremy Black
452 books203 followersJeremy Black is an English historian, who was formerly a professor of history at the University of Exeter. He is a senior fellow at the Center for the Study of America and the West at the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, US.
Black is the author of over 180 books, principally but not exclusively on 18th-century British politics and international relations, and has been described by one commentator as "the most prolific historical scholar of our age". He has published on military and political history, including Warfare in the Western World, 1882–1975 (2001) and The World in the Twentieth Century (2002).
Black is the author of over 180 books, principally but not exclusively on 18th-century British politics and international relations, and has been described by one commentator as "the most prolific historical scholar of our age". He has published on military and political history, including Warfare in the Western World, 1882–1975 (2001) and The World in the Twentieth Century (2002).
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
January 27, 2014
-Selección discutible, resultados dispares.-
Género. Historia.
Lo que nos cuenta. Trabajo realizado por 25 historiadores de diferente perfil y fama, editado por Black, que también participa, y dedicado al repaso de setenta batallas (en realidad no todas batallas propiamente dichas sino operaciones de mayor envergadura que implicaron varias batallas o enfrentamientos) bastante famosas en general, ofreciendo un breve resumen de la situación que llevó al suceso, su desarrollo, sus conclusiones y sus consecuencias.
¿Quiere saber más de este libro, sin spoilers? Visite:
http://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com/...
Género. Historia.
Lo que nos cuenta. Trabajo realizado por 25 historiadores de diferente perfil y fama, editado por Black, que también participa, y dedicado al repaso de setenta batallas (en realidad no todas batallas propiamente dichas sino operaciones de mayor envergadura que implicaron varias batallas o enfrentamientos) bastante famosas en general, ofreciendo un breve resumen de la situación que llevó al suceso, su desarrollo, sus conclusiones y sus consecuencias.
¿Quiere saber más de este libro, sin spoilers? Visite:
http://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com/...
January 27, 2014
-Selección discutible, resultados dispares.-
Género. Historia.
Lo que nos cuenta. Trabajo realizado por 25 historiadores de diferente perfil y fama, editado por Black, que también participa, y dedicado al repaso de setenta batallas (en realidad no todas batallas propiamente dichas sino operaciones de mayor envergadura que implicaron varias batallas o enfrentamientos) bastante famosas en general, ofreciendo un breve resumen de la situación que llevó al suceso, su desarrollo, sus conclusiones y sus consecuencias.
¿Quiere saber más de este libro, sin spoilers? Visite:
http://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com/...
Género. Historia.
Lo que nos cuenta. Trabajo realizado por 25 historiadores de diferente perfil y fama, editado por Black, que también participa, y dedicado al repaso de setenta batallas (en realidad no todas batallas propiamente dichas sino operaciones de mayor envergadura que implicaron varias batallas o enfrentamientos) bastante famosas en general, ofreciendo un breve resumen de la situación que llevó al suceso, su desarrollo, sus conclusiones y sus consecuencias.
¿Quiere saber más de este libro, sin spoilers? Visite:
http://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com/...
July 3, 2025
Zrj zrj truksta konteksto kiekvienam musiui. Atrodo, prirasyta kaip ir daug, bet realiai nieko nepasako 😔
November 25, 2012
70 battles reviewed in very little detail. The Battle of Naseby for instance. Cromwells new model army won because they were more disciplined. Hurrah.
And then there's the 'accuracy' element. The latest Iraq invasion where the CIA arranged for a crowd of Iraqi's to symbolically topple a statue of Saddam Hussein? In this book its something like 'the people, aided by the US military'. Poorly researched, misleading cock muffinary.
And then there's the 'accuracy' element. The latest Iraq invasion where the CIA arranged for a crowd of Iraqi's to symbolically topple a statue of Saddam Hussein? In this book its something like 'the people, aided by the US military'. Poorly researched, misleading cock muffinary.
November 8, 2022
Arbitrarily picked battles at times. Maybe not entirely the fault of the authors, but too ambitious of a project to reduce world history to the '70 greatest battles', some of which are not 'great' in any sense. Ok read if you're new to history and pick this up in the used book section for $5, but the descriptions of battles are also unnecessarily wordy and too many names are used in single sentences for anyone but a history expert to make sense of it. Too much info on too few pages, with a lot being omitted still. Found myself reading Wikipedia a lot.
August 5, 2022
The title of the Dutch translation that I recently bought for 1 euro claims that this book is about land battles only (“veldslagen” = “land battles”); but in fact it also contains a good number of contributions on sea battles, air battles, and sieges.
The seventy battle descriptions are brief and, despite the cooperation of some renowned historians, sometimes somewhat flimsy, as are the bibliographical references. But that probably is the format of the series, which also contains volumes with abominable Discovery Channel-type titles like The Seventy Great Mysteries of Ancient Egypt. It is more an encyclopedia of battle than a collection of well-researched historical essays for a general audience, such as appeared notably in the 1960s and 1970s. On the positive side, there is the high number of different battles one can browse through.
The focus is on “western” warfare. The addition of a few token “non-western” battles only serves to highlight this. The choice of battles and the understanding of their significance, too, often seems rather traditional, with several exceptions of course, e.g. the good and up-to-date piece on the Battle of Poitiers (732 CE) which challenges the myth that this battle “saved” Europe from Islamic conquest. But looking only at the section on battles in Antiquity, one immediately notices a number of annoying inaccuracies, to say the least. Thus the chapter on the Battle in the Teutoburger Forest (9 CE) repeats the 19th-century nationalistic German myth that because of this battle a “pure” Germanic culture could develop, unpolluted by “Latin” influences. Without the Battle in the Teutoburger Forest, modern Germany would never have come into existence. That of course is pure fantasy.
But what really left me dumbfounded, was the chapter on the Battle of Marathon. The author of the chapter wants us to believe that if the “Greeks” (actually: the Athenians) would have lost the fight, there would have been “no Sophocles, […] no Socrates, no Plato, or Aristotle”. In other words, Marathon saved the West from Oriental despotism: without Marathon no glory that was Greece and no glorious western civilization.
It is really disappointing that the editor, Jeremy Black – who is otherwise known for his non-western approach to the history of warfare, and who is the author of such groundbreaking books as Rethinking Military History – has allowed this bigoted bullshit to be printed.
The seventy battle descriptions are brief and, despite the cooperation of some renowned historians, sometimes somewhat flimsy, as are the bibliographical references. But that probably is the format of the series, which also contains volumes with abominable Discovery Channel-type titles like The Seventy Great Mysteries of Ancient Egypt. It is more an encyclopedia of battle than a collection of well-researched historical essays for a general audience, such as appeared notably in the 1960s and 1970s. On the positive side, there is the high number of different battles one can browse through.
The focus is on “western” warfare. The addition of a few token “non-western” battles only serves to highlight this. The choice of battles and the understanding of their significance, too, often seems rather traditional, with several exceptions of course, e.g. the good and up-to-date piece on the Battle of Poitiers (732 CE) which challenges the myth that this battle “saved” Europe from Islamic conquest. But looking only at the section on battles in Antiquity, one immediately notices a number of annoying inaccuracies, to say the least. Thus the chapter on the Battle in the Teutoburger Forest (9 CE) repeats the 19th-century nationalistic German myth that because of this battle a “pure” Germanic culture could develop, unpolluted by “Latin” influences. Without the Battle in the Teutoburger Forest, modern Germany would never have come into existence. That of course is pure fantasy.
But what really left me dumbfounded, was the chapter on the Battle of Marathon. The author of the chapter wants us to believe that if the “Greeks” (actually: the Athenians) would have lost the fight, there would have been “no Sophocles, […] no Socrates, no Plato, or Aristotle”. In other words, Marathon saved the West from Oriental despotism: without Marathon no glory that was Greece and no glorious western civilization.
It is really disappointing that the editor, Jeremy Black – who is otherwise known for his non-western approach to the history of warfare, and who is the author of such groundbreaking books as Rethinking Military History – has allowed this bigoted bullshit to be printed.
October 17, 2019
Very limited, insufficient clues and tactical descriptions of the battles, it omitts several imporyant battles of world history, e.g the Battle of Thermopylae between Percians and Spartans or the Battle of the 3 Emperors(Austerlitz).
June 27, 2013
My only real complaint about this book was that the bombings of Japan were included. To me they just do not qualify as a "battle".
Otherwise, this was a really good, but concise selection of some of the military highlights of history.
Otherwise, this was a really good, but concise selection of some of the military highlights of history.
April 14, 2016
Nothing new in the text, disagree with too many of the battles being in the top seventy in fact on a number of entries it states that the result of the battle was not decisive so how can they be considered for the top 70?
Disapointing
Disapointing
April 30, 2011
The title says it all.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews