The Shape of Battle

by Allan Mallinson

One of our most distinguished military historians tells the story of six defining battles . . .

Every battle is different. Each takes place in a different context - the war, the campaign, the weapons. However, battles across the centuries, whether fought with sticks and stones or advanced technology, have much in common. Fighting is, after all, an intensely human affair; human nature doesn't change. So why were battles fought as they were? What gave them their shape? Why did they go as they victory for one side, defeat for the other?

In exploring six significant feats of arms - the war and campaign in which they each occurred, and the factors that determined their precise form and course - The Shape of Battle answers these fundamental questions about the waging of war.


Hastings (1066) - everyone knows the date, but not, perhaps, the remarkable strategic background.

Towton (1461) - the bloodiest battle to be fought on English soil.

Waterloo (1815) - more written about in English than any other but rarely in its true context as the culminating battle in the longest war in 'modern' times.

D-Day (1944) - a battle within a larger operation ('Overlord'), and the longest-planned and most complex offensive battle in history.

Imjin River (1951) - this little known battle of the Korean War was the British Army's last large-scale defensive battle.

Operation Panther's Claw (2009) - a battle that has yet to receive the official distinction of being an offensive conducted over six weeks with all the trappings of 21st-century warfare yet whose shape and face at times resembled the Middle Ages.

The Shape of Battle is not a polemic, it doesn't try to argue a case. It lets the narratives - the battles - speak for themselves.

Genres: Military Fiction, History, Nonfiction

480 pages, Hardcover

Published October 21, 2021

About the author

Brigadier Allan Lawrence Mallinson is an English author and was an officer in the British Army.

Mallinson is best known for writing a series of novels chronicling the (fictional) life of Matthew Hervey, an officer serving in the (fictional) British 6th Light Dragoons from the late Napoleonic Wars through subsequent colonial conflicts in India, North America and south Africa.

Reviews

[Tom Willis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Took me from 1066 to Afghanistan and I never lost interest. Fascinating to see how much warfare has changed but simultaneously how it hasn’t.

[Geoff Garnett · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed parts of this book, but the thing that I found difficult was the footnotes breaking the flow of my reading. They were too many and too significant. This may be just me as I am a slow reader. The book takes 6 battles, chosen according to the authors interests and puts them in the context of the campaign and choices made by the generals, in particular a few transcendent leaders. I knew a lot already about the first 5 battles, but learned something new for each.

[Christoph Weber · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really well-written and informative, though (even as the author states multiple times why it's missing) I miss an overarching theme more than anything. It's been a good read, but it leaves me with a bit of an empty feeling.

[Sully Augustine · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read a library hardbound over the past week or so after seeing the author's novels recommended. There were interesting portions, but the author jumped around, failing to present a straightforward description of any of the battles he holds up as examples.

[Peter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting analysis, but little that is new.