John Keegan is at once the most readable and the most original of military historians... His book is a work of massive sweep...the most remarkable study of warfare that has yet been written.

Masterpiece...one of those rare books which could still be required reading in its field a hundred years from now.

Our finest military historian has produced a book of breathtaking scope...A tour de force.

The best book I read in 1993 was A History of Warfare...a dazzling display of historical pyrotechnics.

Magnificent

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.

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.