Product Description

From the Battle of Hastings to the tragedy of Gallipoli, Battlefield Detectives covers nearly a thousand years of battles. This book looks at seven of the most famous battlefields in history, using traditional methods and modern technology to discover what happened on the day. The results include new and controversial insights into osme of the worlds enduring military mysteries. Battlefield Detectives uses evidence uncovered by a team of experts from a wide range of disciplines. Archaeologists, forensic scientists, metal-detectorists and military experts contribute to a new understanding of these fields of war.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #833721 in Books
• Published on: 2003-03-03
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 272 pages

Review
Tied into the British TV Channel 5 documentary series of the same name, this book casts new light on seven of the most famous battlefields in history. A team of experts explain some of the perplexing events that have puzzled everyone interested in military affairs over the last thousand years.

About the Author
David Wason was a producer for Granada factual programmes until his retirement in 2002.

Customer Reviews

Great Idea - Disappointingly Generalised
I really, really wanted to like this book. The Channel 5 series it was based on treated new developments in the archaeological examination of major battles clearly and purposefully, and I was looking forward to a stimulating read.

Popular Battlefield Archaeology is something of a new concept in television. The TV series 'Two Men in a Trench' is perhaps the most obvious example, but for me, the fascinating data they (usually) recover is a little marred by a rather too flippant approach. Is jaunty soul music really appropriate when discussing the violent death of thousands in battle?

'Battlefield Detectives' however was TV documentary by the number. Clear, secure, detailed and reasoned. The 'Custer 1876' section was most familiar, and I think it was the examination of the Little Big Horn battlefield after a brush fire in the 1980s that really triggered modern battlefield archaeology. The forensic examination of bullets and cartridges, and their distribution with other artefacts blew away the image of a heroic 'Last Stand' to be replaced by a violent massacre as units lost their cohesion while under overwhelming pressure.

There is some fascinating material here - Agincourt almost turns into a Heysel-like crowd disaster; the heroism of the Turks at Balaclava is recovered and reappraised; the stunning lack of adequate intelligence before the Gallipoli landings shows how doomed the campaign was from the start.

But - there is far too much exposition here that the seasoned military history reader will have seen and heard so very many times before. This book is a light easy read, and does raise some valid revisionist points - but sometimes these amount to half a page in a 25-page chapter. Too general to be a really stimulating addition to battlefield archaeology; not really adequate as an introduction to the battles themselves. Like so much on Channel 5, nearly there, not quite yet...