Product Description

Explosive reference for all the family in handy compact format From the first chariot clashes of the ancient world to the bloody conflicts of today’s Middle East and the modern era of nuclear weapons, explore 5,000 years of armed battles and brutal combat. Get up close to an incredible array of artefacts, paintings, maps, battle plans and photographs which bring the history of conflict vividly to life. Meet the generals and see key weapons used in blood-thirsty battles from the cannon to the tank. Foreword by Dan Snow, co-presenter of Battlefield Britain. Prepare yourself for this remarkable but brutal story of mankind.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #48338 in Books
• Published on: 2007-06-07
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 360 pages

About the Author
R.G. Grant has published more than 20 military and history books, including DK’s Flight. He was a contributor to the ITV Visual History of the Twentieth Century. He lives in London. Dan Snow is the co-presenter of BBC2’s Battlefield Britain. He lives in London.

Customer Reviews

Battle; a great coffee table book.
This is a hefty tome to have on your bookshelf and is better left on the coffee table.
Whilst not as indepth as I would have expected (for its sheer size), it gives the reader a glimpse into warfare from around the world, it is as the book title states "a visual journey through 5,000 years of combat".
Battle is a book that any reader can pick up, open it at any page and enjoy, the book has thousands of illustrations showing a variety of weapons and armour as well as some of the more modern stuff like pictures of inside a submarine or cockpit of a helicopter.
If you've got someone at home who likes military history then this would be an ideal gift that they would appreciate.

Good general interest book.
This is a well presented family reference book offering a structured presentation of battle through the ages.
It presents background information on selected battles. To its great credit its terms of reference extend beyond the Western / Classical range traditionally found in such presentations and includes information on warfare in China, Japan, India and Latin America. This is related chronologically and technologically to the Western/Classical periods and makes well the point that warfare was a global matter long before the modern era: if not in the scale of conflict certainly in the common advances in the instruments of war.
There are hundreds of excellent colour photographs, particularly covering the various weapons of each era. Dan Snow, one of the visible faces of modern history telling, sets the scene in his forward, and he is right to comment that "the age-old tactics for enveloping enemy forces were as effective in the Roman world as they were in World War II".
It would have added to the book had a battle map where practicable accompanied each entry as those maps that are used are good at indicating the general flow of attacks.
Of tactics there is some mention in a general way.
For detailed insight into individual battles, the ground, the personalities and the armies a different book is required but as an introduction to battle and its many faces, this is a good start. There will be many children who in future will look back on this book as the spark that ignited their interest in military history.

Mike McCarthy
Editor, 'The Battle Guide'
Guild of Battlefield Guides

What a great reference!
I love this book, its packed with glossy illustrations and information, its a great guide and source of information and very interesting.

It covers basically every war since the Ancient Egyptians, Greeks, Romans etc up to the present day. With maps, diagrams and pictures. Because it covers so much ground most conflicts are limited to a simple paragraph under a title and date. But this is a good starting point for further research/reading.

A great book for anyone interested in military history