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Richard Overy
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War: A History in 100 Battles Kindle Edition

by Richard Overy (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.1 4.1 out of 5 stars 173 ratings
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The object of this book is to introduce readers to a whole range of military history which has all the drama, dangers, horrors and excitement that we associate with Stalingrad or the Somme. Battles are acute moments of history whenever and wherever they have been fought. Through them we can understand how warfare and world history have evolved.

Choosing just one hundred battles from recorded human history is a challenge. Not just because it is necessary to cover almost 6,000 years of history, but because men have fought each other almost continuously for millennia. Anyone who knows anything about the history of war may be disappointed at what has had to be left out. However, each of the 100 memorable battles described shows both how the nature of armed combat has changed over human history, and also how, despite changes in technology, organisation or ideas, many things have remained the same.

It is an old adage that you can win a battle but lose a war. The battles featured here almost always resulted in victory for one side or another, but the victor did not necessarily win the war. Some battles are decisive in that broader historical sense, others are not. The further back in time, the more likely it is that an enemy could be finished off in one blow. The wars of the modern age, between major states, have involved repeated battles until one side was battered into submission. Some of the great generals of the recent past – Napoleon, Robert E Lee, Erich von Manstein – have been on the losing side but are remembered nonetheless for their generalship.

Some on the winning side have all but disappeared from the history books or from public memory. Equally, in many battles, the issue is not victory or defeat, but what the battle can tell us about the history of warfare itself. New weapons, new tactics, new ways of organising armed forces can have a sudden impact on the outcome of a battle. But so too can leadership, or the effects of a clever deception, or raw courage. That is why the book has been divided up into clear themes which apply equally to the battles of the ancient world as they do to the battles of today.

As Professor Richard Overy laments: “Battle is not a game to plug into a computer but a piece of living history, messy, bloody and real. That, at least, has not changed in 6,000 years.”

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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Richard Overy is a professor of history at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom. His many books on European history include The Twilight Years: The Paradox of Britain Between the Wars; Why the Allies Won; Russia's War; and The Dictators: Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia, winner of the Wolfson Prize for History.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B01KEPNUV6
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ William Collins (October 6, 2016)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ October 6, 2016
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 3789 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 540 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.1 4.1 out of 5 stars 173 ratings

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Richard Overy

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Customer reviews

4.1 out of 5 stars
4.1 out of 5
173 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

gt surber
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent world history from the military point of view.
Reviewed in the United States on August 24, 2015
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Review – A History of War in 100 Battles by Richard Overy

“A History of War in 100 Battles” by Richard Overy is a concise, fascinating review of 100 battles from throughout history and geography that give an over view of war itself. Mr. Overy breaks the battles into 6 topics as to strategy. Then he gives us a concise review of 15 – 20 battles in each topic. The topics he chooses are 1) Leadership, 2) Against the Odds, 3) Innovation, 4) Deception, 5) Courage in the Face of Fire. And 6) In the nick of time.

Each battle is briefly described with 1) it's place in history, 2) tactics, especially those that demonstrate the topic the battle is listed under, and in some cases strategy is discussed, 3) historical effects of the battle, and usually 4) some interesting trivia or tidbits of information about the battle. Usually causalities (deaths, injuries, prisoners) to both sides are estimated. My only complaint with the book is that I was not always sure which side is being described. Less frequent use of pronouns and more exact labeling of various parts of the militaries would have helped. Mr. Overy does state that the choice of the number battles was arbitrary and some hard to achieve with so many battles to choose from. Some of his choices are rather obscure. Other of his choices reflect his national origin in the UK.

Maps of the battle fields would have helped but probably would have increased the size of the book to unwieldy.. There are pictures of paintings and drawings of all the battles.

Mr. Overy has provided us with a fascinating introduction which delves into why men go to war, both in the larger picture of nations, and in the more personal of the individual man. While the book is not written for shock effect, there is plenty of gore and some horror. Both of these are part of War, and Mr. Overy is judicious in writing about these.

After reading this book, my view of history is changed. It is amazing how consistently the East has been invading the West for time immemorial. And how the West reversed this with the age of colonialism. The vast numbers of men involved in the various battles is mind boggling, and one wonders where all these men came from and how they were motivated into death invoking actions. There are many good, brief descriptions of the weapons used, providing a window into the changes in weaponry. The eclipse of battle ships by aircraft is well described.

This a fascinating, if brief, discussion of 100 battles and of world history. I recommend it for anyone interested in a deeper view of history than kings and dates.
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mirasreviews
4.0 out of 5 stars Good Reference for the General Reader, Covering 3276 Years of Militarily Significant Battles.
Reviewed in the United States on August 26, 2014
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"A History of War in 100 Battles" is a reference work written for laypeople that provides an overview of 100 battles that are notable from a military historian's point of view. Each demonstrates some important element in the history of warfare. Richard Overy, a Professor of History at the University of Exeter, writes fluidly and precisely. The text is not dry or overburdened. It invites leisurely reading; if you open the book to look up one battle, you will probably read another, and another. Overy organizes the battles by theme into 6 chapters whose titles refer to a key element that distinguishes the battle or played a large role in deciding its outcome: "Leadership" , "Against the Odds", "Innovation", "Deception", "Courage in the Face of Fire", and "In the Nick of Time". Each battle is accorded 2-4 pages. There are 160 illustrations, mostly paintings or photographs, of the battles. These emphasize the dramatic, while the text gives us the straight story, to the extent that it is known.

Overy introduces the book with an eloquent summary of the realities of battles and their various motivations over the 4000 years of recorded military conflicts. But the battles themselves, fought by different parties for various reasons and by diverse means, are strikingly similar, Overy says. Each chapter is introduced with an essay describing its topic's significance. Then, the battles are numbered and described, one after the other, in chronological order within the chapter. Overy provides just enough background for each battle that we understand who the major players are, but context is scant. He explains what happened and why on the battlefield as a whole. This is far less detail than military history buffs will be accustomed to, but, on the bright side, it does not bog down in minutiae. The earliest battle covered is the Battle of Kadesh in 1285 BC. The most recent is Operation Desert Storm in 1991. The battles span 5 continents and 3276 years.

There are battles that everyone will recognize, such as the Fall of Troy (approx. 1200 BC), the Battle of Cannae (216 BC), the English defeat of the Spanish Armada (1588), the Battle of Trafalgar ((1805), and the Tet Offensive (1968). There are plenty of battles that only students of the period will know, such as the Battle of Catalaunian Field, fought between a Roman-Gothic army and the invading army of Attila the Hun in 451, the Battle of Breitenfeld, fought between Sweden and the Holy Roman Empire in 1631, the Battle of Navarino Bay, fought between a mixed European fleet and that of an Ottoman Sultan in 1827, and the Third Battle of Edirne, fought between Turkey and Bulgaria over the city of Edirne in 1913. Both land and naval battles are included. Inevitably, many battles are from Medieval Europe, World Wars, or the result of imperial ambition, such as clashes with the colonial British military or the Ottoman Turks. A relatively small number are from civil wars.

Though my interest in history has usually skirted military history, I have found blow by blow descriptions of game-changing battles to be compelling when I have read them. Overy writes well, which made me wish he had provided more detail. But that would have required either decreasing the number of battles by at least half, leaving too few in each category, or making the book into a doorstop-style tome, which Oxford University Press apparently wanted to avoid. This is a reference for interested laypeople, for those times when you hear or read a battle mentioned and can't quite place it or have never heard of it. "A History of War in 100 Battles" provides a compact overview of the salient facts, but not the historiographical controversies or reports on the battle's hourly progress. It would be more accurately titled "A History of Warfare in 100 Battles", because it does not delve into politics, economics, or the war -just the battle. It's a handy, well-written general reference.
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Calvin
3.0 out of 5 stars Not as advertised
Reviewed in the United States on May 15, 2023
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I ordered the book new, and received a used book. Not as advertised! The book is also damaged.
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Peter
5.0 out of 5 stars Better than I expected!
Reviewed in the United States on January 21, 2021
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I guess 100 battles is a lot more than it sounds like; this book covered all of the ones I wanted to read about and then some. It has a remarkably good format too, it is split up into several sections based on an aspect of warfare (Deception, Innovation, Against the Odds, etc) and the battles in each section are ordered chronologically.

Some of the battles were more interesting to read than others, but I especially enjoyed reading about the fall of Constantinople and will probably get more books on that to read deeper. The descriptions here can oftentimes be too short.
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Les S. Moore
5.0 out of 5 stars History of War in 100 battles.
Reviewed in the United States on March 30, 2015
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Wonderfully written and easy to digest. Each event is given a background of cause, major aim, and consequences of outcome. A great read for any history buff in general, or military history buff in particular.
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Top reviews from other countries

K.R.L. Narasimha Rao.
5.0 out of 5 stars Past and Present.
Reviewed in India on April 6, 2021
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A window into the past!
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Dr Barry Clayton
5.0 out of 5 stars Fighting Throughout The Ages.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 28, 2014
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Richard Overy is Professor of History at Exeter University. He has also taught at Cambridge and King's College, London. He is the acclaimed author of 25 books on, for example, Hitler's Germany and the Strategic Bombing Offensive in WW2. He is currently writing a new history of the Second World War.

There are many books on battles,some even with the same title, for example,there are several accounts of: decisive battles of the English civil wars, the US Civil War, WW1 and WW2. Edward Creasy's 1851 account of:'15 Decisive Battles' is, of course, justly famous, it set a model for several years after for books on battles. He believed that decisive battles were important because in ending wars they 'improved things'. Many historians, such as Michael Howard, do not share this view. Indeed battles often make things worse.

Churchill called battles 'punctuation marks in history'. They are also often major turning or pivotal points, for example, Stalingrad. Gettysburg, Waterloo, the Tet Offensive. Calling a battle 'decisive' has long been controversial, even the definition of 'battle'has been contentious.

Battles are much more than military affairs. They reflect political, economic and social developments. They cannot be separated from the technology that created the weapons used in them or the strategic framework into which they fitted. Overy touches on these aspects.

In this book he examines 100 battles, note he does not call them 'decisive', from recorded human history, a period of some 6000 years. His choice of battles includes as one would expect many famous encounters such as Thermopylae, Legnano, Agincourt, Plassy, Omdurman, the Battle of the Little Big Horn, ,Gettysburg, Cambrai, the Battle of France, and Desert Storm. He admits that not everyone will agree with his choice.

Instead of cataloguing the battles by historical time, or by size as others have done, Overy divides his battles under the headings: 'Against the Odds', 'Innovation', 'Deception', 'Courage in the Face of the Enemy', and 'In The Nick of Time'.

An opening chapter: 'The Truth of Battle' is illuminating about warfare through the ages. He demonstrates how violence occurred well before settled agricultural communities-this has sometimes been doubted. Nomadic cultures were also violent. Hence, as he and a few others have shown, warfare has strong historical explanations rather than purely evolutionary ones.

Out of 288 battles from the second millennium BCE to around 500 CE, 94% took place in the 'swathe of territory from Mediterranean Europe to Southern Europe'. China in contrast had only two battles in this period. The author explains the growing dependence on state or sub state forms of organisation for raising and feeding armies, and on taxation for funding them.

In Chapter 1, he examines leadership in battle. He dismisses the idea that anyone can become a leader if they do their homework. He argues that what defines leadership in battle is a willingness to be flexible, imaginative, courageous, and confident. Leadership is a notoriously emotive subject. It is a very difficult concept replete with exceptions. As he says, not all battle leaders are competent. Many are arrogant and very poor planners. He gives examples. He could with ease have given many more..

For this reviewer, Professor Overy's battle accounts are very acute and, given the limited space available, very accurate.
Particularly good are his accounts of : The Fall of Troy; The Six Day War, and the Battle of Dien Bien Phu. Unlike some accounts, he places the chosen battles in context. Books that fail to do this usually turn out to be little more than dictionaries.

Overall this is a thought provoking account of battles within warfare. Anyone not too familiar with the subject will learn a great deal from this book written in an easy, elegant and entertaining style that is typical of Professor Overy's writing.

The bibliography comprises mainly secondary sources and is reasonably extensive.

A book that will be very useful in particular for History undergraduates and postgraduates studying War /Strategic Studies.

Highly recommended
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Sandip Bhowmik
5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful book
Reviewed in India on June 19, 2019
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Marvellous, little pieces of History
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jeremy sims
4.0 out of 5 stars Worth a read
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 28, 2016
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Well written short overviews of some of the words most famous battles. Not for people who want detailed information.
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M123
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent!
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 29, 2020
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Really enjoyed this book. It gave a brief overview of key battles and people in history - this then led me down many rabbit holes to find out more info about certain battles. Each 'battle' is about 5 / 6 pages long and is brief enough, but with enough context, to make it enjoyable and interesting. Highly recommended!
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