Product Description

In this brilliantly readable and controversial book, Britain's most distinguished and widely-read military historian provides not merely a history of warfare but an analysis of world history, and the role that man's impulse to war has played in it. After thirty years of reading, research, teaching and commentating on military affairs, A History of Warfare brings together in a single volume the themes explored in such earlier best-selling books of his as The Face of Battle and The Mask of Command and adds to them the insights gained in his visits to many of the world's major battlefields, a lifetime's friendship with soldiers of different armies and experience as a war correspondent in the Lebanon and the Gulf. John Keegan believes that the history of warfare has for too long been written either as specialist study of 'war as the continuation of politics' or as a horror story. Its place at the heart of human cultures and the enormous variety of forms it takes in different societies has too often been ignored. The narrative of the book moves from the strangely ritualistic combat of the Stone Age peoples to the nihilistic destructiveness of mass warfare in the modern age, in an historical sweep which covers human aggression in variety of contexts: the rule-bound battles of Roman legions, the power of an 'idea' in warmaking by Islam, the unrestrained aggressiveness of the steppe horse peoples from Attila to Genghis Khan and the attempts of Chinese civilisations to attain its ends without violence. The author demonstrates how particular cultures and their styles of warmaking go hand in hand. He also attaches his analysis to the great changes in military technology - the discoveries of bronze and iron, the taming of the horse to the chariot and riding, the introduction of gunpowder and the mobilisation of science and industry to produce the weapons of mass destruction of the twentieth century, culminating in the development of the atomic bomb. A History of Warfare stresses that warmaking, for all its destructiveness, has been an inescapable feature of human culture since organised societies emerged. It also recognises, however, that man has consistently sought to limit the effects of his own capacity for violence and that now, in the nuclear age, he has no alternative to making limitation effective if he is to survive.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #52854 in Books
• Published on: 2004-10-07
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 448 pages

Review
'John Keegan is at once the most readable and the most original of living military historians...His book is a work of massive sweep...the most remarkable study of warfare that has yet been written.' Michael Howard, New York Times Review of Books. 'He examines every branch of warfare in its history, psychology, metallurgy, genetics, logistics, archaeology, tactics and strategy...He is as much at home in the Empire of Babylon as he is on the Somme...On every subject he has something fresh to say. His learning is staggering and his gift for exposition unequalled.' Nigel Nicolson, Weekend Telegraph 'Keegan's power as a writer derives from the fact that he does not see himself merely as a chronicler of battles, but as a student of the human condition. It is the breadth of his grasp of civilisation, as well as of the soldier's art, that makes this book so formidable.' Max Hastings, Evening Standard 'A masterpiece...one of those rare books which could still be required reading in its field a hundred years from now.' New Yorker 'Our finest military historian has produced a book of breathtaking scope...A tour de force.' Niall Ferguson, Daily Mail 'The best book I read in 1993 was A History of Warfare...a dazzling display of historical pyrotechnics.' Paul Johnson, Books of the Year, Sunday Times 'Magnificent' Sunday Telegraph

About the Author
John Keegan is the Defence Editor of the Daily Telegraph and Britain's foremost military historian. The Reith Lecturer in 1998, he is the author of many bestselling books including The Face of Battle, Six Armies in Normandy, Battle at Sea, The Second World War, The Mask of Command, Warpaths, The Battle for History, The First World War, and most recently, Intelligence in War. For many years John Keegan was the Senior Lecturer in Military History at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, and he has been a Fellow of Princeton University and Delmas Distinguished Professor of History at Vassar. He is Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He received the OBE in the Gulf War honours list, and was knighted in the Millennium honours list in 1999.

Customer Reviews

Interesting, but fundamentally flawed.
This book is not a history of warfare at all, but a political-military treatise, heavily biased to a single point of view. However, it is an interesting read and also thought-provoking - so I gave it 2-stars.


Keegan makes a range of claims in this book which are fundamentally incorrect. Three such lines of argument are discussed below, but there are many others and I wonder if Keegan has even misinterpreted some of the 'facts' he suggests about tribal warfare in South America.

1. He claims that there is no Clausewitzian way of interpreting, or applying, nuclear force. Nuclear force is applied to give weight to political and military bargaining. The threat of use provides its power. In the case of the Cold War, the East-West military balance in Germany was primarily ensured through the West's nuclear armament offsetting the East's conventional armament. The lack of use of a weapon does not make it irrelevant.

2. He over-simplifies the role of the castle. He contends that the use of gunpowder made the castle obsolete. This is again incorrect. The castle approach may be no substitute for mobility, but the principle has been applied widely (if poorly), even in the 20th Century. Further, his claim that it was impossible to take a castle prior to the arrival of the cannon is also flawed - as history shows a range of methods which were applied successfully (such as at the successful seige of the 'impenetrable' Rochester castle in 1215).

3. He denegrates the role of citizen armies. This flies in the face of 20th Century and 21st Century history and is, quite frankly, dangerous. The proof of history is that citizen armies are vastly more trustworthy and loyal to their homeland than their alternatives.

This book is very anti-Clausewitz, which is not helpful at all. I suspect that it was Keegan's intention to make an impact by attacking a giant of the genre. This is rather like the Clausewitz vs. Sun Tzu debate - which I also find counter-productive.

A true premier work on this subject would be one which could take existing theories and meld them into something new. This book neither attempts nor succeeds in doing any such thing. One for the vaults...

A readable history of warfare!
This is simply excellent. The narrative is well-written, never stuffy and pitched for a level above beginner. Keegan places the development of armies, arms, materials and transport in various sections. This makes for easy reading, learning and entertainment. I find this combination unusual in books about war. At almost every page I wanted to know more about the history of the particular tribe, nation, war or armaments being described. I like his personal slant; though he does give fair credit to other views. Recommended.

Gross misinterpretation of Clausewitz
Keegan sets out on a bold crusade to discredit Carl von Clausewitz and fails - miserably. Two major problems:

1) Keegan is oblivious of the fact that Clausewitz's phrase "war is a contiunation of politics by other means" is the antithesis in a dialectical argument, whose thesis is the point that "war is nothing but a duel [or wrestling match, a better translation of the German Zweikampf] on a larger scale." His synthesis, which resolves the deficiencies of these two bold statements, says that war is neither "nothing but" an act of brute force nor "merely" a rational act of politics or policy. This synthesis lies in his "fascinating trinity" [wunderliche Dreifaltigkeit]: a dynamic, inherently unstable interaction of the forces of violent emotion, chance, and rational calculation.

2. Keegan limits the Clausewitzian definition of politics to western, secular government-based power. This is totally wrong. Clausewitz made no limits on the term "politics" - it is Keegan who does that, claiming that pre-state cultures cannot possess a certain cultural or religious policy that can lead to war. Every society, from iron age nomads to modern states have their own political agenda, their own set of normative rules or religious creeds that can evolve into warfare in order to benefit the tribe/society.