The following are books published by the Easton Press in the leather bound Library of Military History series. The Library of Military History includes notable titles about war and famous battles from wars in history.
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The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World by Edward S. Creasy - 1969
History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides - 1974
The Gallic Wars by Julius Caesar - 1983
Miracle at Midway by Gordon William Prange - 1986
Patton: The Man Behind The Legend 1885 to 1945 by Martin Blumenson - 1987
Son of the Morning Star by Evan S. Connell - 1987
The Great War by Cyril Falls - 1987
Decisive Day: The Battle for Bunker Hill by Richard M. Ketchum - 1987
The Winter Soldiers by Richard M. Ketchum - 1987
The Battle for North America by Francis Parkman - 1987
A Bridge Too Far by Cornelius Ryan - 1987
Lee and Grant by Gene Smith - 1987
The Guns of August by Barbara W. Tuchman - 1987
Waterloo: The Hundred Days by David Chandler - 1988
Overlord: D-Day and the Battle for Normandy by Max Hastings - 1988
Vietnam: A History by Stanley Karnow - 2 volumes - 1988
From Manassas To Appomattox: Memoirs of the Civil War in America by James Longstreet - 1988
Gallipoli by Alan Moorehead - 1988
Nimitz by E. B. Potter - 1988
At Dawn We Slept: The Untold Story of Pearl Harbor by Gordon W. Prange - 2 volumes - 1988
The Rommel Papers by Erwin Rommel - 1988
Landscape Turned Red: The Battle of Antietam by Stephen W. Sears - 1988
The Gettysburg Campaign: A Study in Command by Edwin B. Coddington - 2 volumes - 1989
Crusade in Europe by Dwight D. Eisenhower - 1989
Bataan: The March of Death by Stanley L. Falk - 1989
Decision at Leyte by Stanley L. Falk - 1989
The Korean War by Max Hastings - 1989
The Influence of Sea Power Upon History 1660 to 1783 by A. T. Mahan - 1989
The Armada by Garrett Mattingly - 1989
Decision at Trafalgar by Dudley Pope - 1989
The 900 Days: The Siege of Leningrad by Harrison Evans Salisbury - 1989
Eagle Against the Sun: The American War with Japan by Ronald H. Spector - 1989
The Last 100 Days by John Toland - 1989
The American Way of War: A History of United States Military Strategy and Policy by Russell F. Weigley - 1989
The Mexican War, 1846 to 1848 by K. Jack Bauer - 1990
A Stillness At Appomattox: The Army of the Potomac by Bruce Catton - 1990
To Appomattox: Nine April Days 1865 by Burke Davis - 1990
Panzer Leader by Heinz Guderian - 1990
The War in the Crimea by Edward Hamley - 1990
The Price of Glory: Verdun 1916 by Alistair Horne - 1990
Genghis Khan: The Emperor of All Men by Harold Lamb - 1990
The Art of War by Niccolo Machiavelli - 1990
Jutland by Donald MacIntyre 1990
The British at The Gates by Robin Reilly - 1990
The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire 1936 to 1946 by John Toland - 2 volumes - 1990
Rome '44: The Battle for The Eternal City by Raleigh Trevelyan - 1990
The Campaign of Chancellorsville by John Bigelow Jr. - 1991
The Campaigns of Napoleon by David G Chandler - 2 volumes - 1991
Alexander The Great by Robin Lane Fox - 1991
Lee's Lieutenants by Douglas Southall Freeman - 3 volumes - 1991
The Face of Battle by John Keegan - 1991
Roosevelt's Rough Riders by Virgil Carrington Jones - 1991
Sherman: Fighting Prophet by Lloyd Lewis - 2 volumes - 1991
The War With Hannibal by Livy - 1991
The Edge of the Sword: Israel's War of Independence, 1947 to 1949 by Netanel Lorch - 1991
Greek and Roman Naval Warfare by William Ledyard Rodgers - 1991
Naval Warfare Under Oars: 4th to 16th Centuries, a Study of Strategy, Tactics and Ship Design by William Ledyard Rodgers - 1991
The Wilderness Campaign by Edward Steere - 1991
The Art of War by Sun Tzu - 1991
Masters of the Art of Command by Martin Blumenson and James L. Stokesbury - 1992
War In Peacetime: The History and Lessons of Korea by J. Lawton Collins - 1992
The Military Life of Frederick the Great by Christopher Duffy - 1992
Strategy by B. H. Liddell Hart - 1992
A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954 to 1962 by Alistair Horne - 1992
Billy Mitchell: Crusader for Air Power by Alfred F. Hurley - 1992
Day in Infamy by Walter Lord - 1992
The Boer War by Thomas Pakenham - 1992
Anzio: The Gamble That Failed by Martin Blumenson - 1993
The War Lords: Military Commanders of the Twentieth Century by Michael Carver - 1993
Diary of the Sinai Campaign by Moshe Dayan - 1993
Tug of War: The Battle for Italy 1943 to 1945 by Dominick Graham and Shelford Bidwell - 1993
The Great Mutiny : India 1857 by Christopher Hibbert - 1993
The War of American Independence : Military Attitudes, Policies, and Practice, 1763 to 1789 by Don Higginbotham - 1993
Pork Chop Hill: The American Fighting Man in Action, Korea, Spring, 1953 by S. L. A. Marshall - 1993
The Two Ocean War: A Short History of the United States Navy in the Second World by Samuel Eliot Morison - 1993
The Washing of the Spears by Donald R. Morris - 1993
Pershing: General of the Armies by Donald Smythe - 1993
The Command of the Air by Guilio Douhet - 1994
The Real War 1914 to 1918 by B. H. Liddell Hart - 1994
The Franco Prussian War : The German Invasion of France 1870 to 1871 by Michael Howard - 1994
The Mask of Command by John Keegan - 1994
Kesselring: a Soldier's Record by Albert Kesselring - 1994
John Paul Jones: A Sailor's Biography by Samuel Eliot Morison - 1994
Stilwell and the American Experience in China, 1911 to 45 by Barbara Wertheim Tuchman - 1994
The Thirty Years War by C. V. Wedgwood - 1994
A Soldier Reports by William C. Westmoreland - 1994
Lincoln and His Generals by T. Harry Williams - 1994
D-Day, June 6, 1944: The Climactic Battle of World War II by Stephen E. Ambrose - 1995
Mark Clark by Martin Blumenson - 1995
A General's Life: An Autobiography by General of the Army by Omar N. Bradley - 1995
The Devil's Horsemen: The Mongol Invasion of Europe by James Chambers - 1995
The Bitter Woods: The Dramatic Story, Told at All Echelons by John S. D. Eisenhower - 1995
Street Without Joy: Indochina at War, 1946 to 54 by Bernard B. Fall - 1995
Agincourt by Christopher Hibbert - 1995
Northwest Africa: Seizing the Initiative in the West by George F. Howe - 1995
The Mighty Endeavor: American Armed Forces in the European Theater in World War II by Charles B. MacDonald - 1995
McClellan's Own Story by George Brinton McClellan - 1995
We Were Soldiers Once and Young: Ia Drang the Battle That Changed the War in Vietnam by Harold G. Moore and Joseph L. Galloway - 1995
The Art of Warfare in the Age of Napoleon by Gunther E. Rothenberg - 1995
The March Up Country: A Translation of Xenophon's Anabasis by Xenophon - 1995
Paul Revere's Ride by David Hackett Fischer - 1996
How the North Won: A Military History of the Civil War by Herman Hattaway and Archer Jones - 2 volumes - 1996
The Fall of Paris: The Siege and The Commune 1870 to 71 by Alistair Horne - 1996
On Guerrilla Warfare by Mao Tse-Tung - 1996
Luftwaffe by Murray Williamson - 1996
The Crecy War: A Military History of the Hundred Years War from 1337 to the Peace of Bretigny 1360 by Alfred H.Burne - 1997
Battle Studies: Ancient and Modern Battle by Ardant Du Picq - 1997
And We Shall Shock Them: The British Army in the Second World War by David Fraser - 1997
Sicily and the Surrender of Italy by Albert N. Garland and Howard McGraw Smyth - 1997
The First Air Campaign: August 1914 to November 1918 by Eric Lawson and Jane Lawson - 1997
Company Commander by Charles B. MacDonald - 1997
Korea: the First War We Lost by Bevin Alexander - 1998
Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant - 1998
The Bridge at Remagen by Ken Hechler - 1998
The Forgotten Soldier by Guy Sajer - 1998
No Man's Land by John Toland - 1998
Patton : A Genius for War by Carlo D'Este - 1999
Ultra Goes to War: The First Account of World War II's Greatest Secret Based on Official Documents by Ronald Lewin - 1999
The Histories of Herodotus - 2000
The First World War and The Second World War by John Keegan - 2 volumes - 2000
The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes - 2000
Combat Leader's Field Guide by Brett A. Stoneberger - 2000
Guadalcanal Diary by Richard Tregaskis - 2000
A Soldier's Story by Omar N. Bradley - 2001
Lawrence of Arabia, Seven Pillars of Wisdom by T. E. Lawrence - 2003
Blind Man's Bluff by Sherry Sontag and Christopher Drew - 2003
Lexington and Concord: The Beginning of the War of the American Revolution by Arthur B Tourtellot - 2003
Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War by Mark Bowden - 2004
The Great Escape by Paul Brickhill - 2004
Spies in the Himalayas: Secret Missions and Perilous Climbs by M. S. Kohli and Kenneth Conboy - 2004
Fighting for Christendom: Holy War and the Crusaders by Chrsitopher Tyerman - 2004
The River War: An Account of the Reconquest of the Sudan by Winston S. Churchill - 2005
The Military Maxims of Napoleon - 2005
Six Days of War by Michael B. Oren - 2005
The Naval War of 1812 by Theodore Roosevelt - 2005
The Pirate Coast: Thomas Jefferson, the First Marines, and the Secret Mission of 1805 by Richard Zacks - 2005
The Story of the Malakand Field Force by Winston S. Churchill - 2006
Washington's Crossing by David Hackett Fischer - 2006
Saratoga: Turning Point of America's Revolutionary War by Richard M. Ketchum - 2006
Thunder Run: The Armored Strike to Capture Baghdad by David Zucchio - 2006
Flags of Our Fathers : Heroes of Iwo Jima by James Bradley - 2007
The Boer War by Winston S. Churchill - 2007
George Washington and Benedict Arnold : A Tale of Two Patriots - Dave Palmer - 2007
Decision at Sea: Five Naval Battles That Shaped American History by Craig L. Symonds - 2007
Thermopylae: The Battle That Changed the World by Paul Cartledge - 2008
Memoirs of World War II by Winston S. Churchill - 2008
Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War by David Halberstam - 2008
Sea of Thunder: Four Commanders and the Last Great Naval Campaign 1941-1945 by Evan Thomas - 2008
A Terrible Glory by James Donovan - 2009
Hero Found by Bruce Henderson - 2009
End of Empire: Attila The Hun and The Fall of Rome by Christopher Kelly - 2009
To Conquer Hell: The Meuse-Argonne, 1918 by Edward G. Lengel - 2009
Five Days in London: May 1940 by John Lukacs - 2009
The Book of Five Rings by Miyamoto Musashi - 2009
Voices of the Foreign Legion by Adrian D. Gilbert - 2010
War by Sebastian Junger - 2010
The Ghosts of Cannae by Robert L. O'Connell - 2010
Horse Soldiers by Doug Stanton - 2010
Hannibal by Richard A. Gabriel - 2011
On Grand Strategy by John Lewis Gaddis
Band of Brothers by Stephen Ambrose
Campaigns of Alexander by Arrian of Nicomedia
The Templars by Dan Jones
It differs somewhat from the history of war with military history focusing on the people and institutions of war-making while the history of war focuses on the evolution of war itself in the face of changing technology, governments, and geography.
Military activity has been a constant process over thousands of years, and the essential tactics, strategy, and goals of military operations have been unchanging throughout history. As an example one notable maneuver is the double envelopment, considered to be the consummate military maneuver, first executed by Hannibal in the Battle of Cannae in 216 BC – over 2,200 years ago. By the study of history, the military seeks to not repeat past mistakes, and improve upon its current performance by instilling an ability in commanders to perceive historical parallels during battle, so as to capitalize on the lessons learned. The main areas military history includes are the history of wars, battles, and combats, history of the military art, and history of each specific military service.
Military history has a number of purposes. One main purpose is to learn to fight and prevent wars more effectively. Another is to create a sense of tradition which is used to create cohesively military forces.
Types of warfare
There are a number of ways to categorize warfare. One categorization is conventional versus unconventional, where "Conventional" warfare involves well-identified, armed soldiers fighting one another in a relatively open and straightforward way without weapons of mass destruction. "Unconventional" refers to other types of war which can involves guerrilla, insurgency, and terrorist tactics or alternatively can include nuclear, chemical, or biological warfare.Periods of military history
Early militaries
In the earliest societies, such as hunter-gatherer societies, there were no social roles or divisions of labor (with the exception of age or sex differences), so every able person contributed to any raids or defense of territory. Only in relatively advanced agricultural societies was there the possibility of professional soldiers or militaries as distinct, organized units.Much of what we know of ancient history is the history of militaries: their conquests, their movements, and their technological innovations. There are many reasons for this. Kingdoms and empires, the central units of control in the ancient world, could only be maintained through military force. Due to limited agricultural ability, there were relatively few areas that could support large communities, so fighting was common. Weapons and armor, designed to be sturdy, tended to last longer than peaceful implements. And writing, when it existed, was often used for kings to boast of military conquests or victories. For all these reasons, military history comprises a large part of ancient history.
Notable militaries in the ancient world include:
Egyptian
Babylonian
Greek
Macedonian
Roman
Chinese
Gandhara
Qin
Some of the military unit types and technologies which were developed in antiquity are:
Infantry
Cavalry
Cataphract
Horse archer
Chariotry
Archer
Slinger
Hoplite
Macedonian phalanx
Roman legions
Marius' army
auxiliaries
Hastati
Principes
Triarii
Velites
Medieval militaries
Technological, cultural, and social developments had forced a dramatic transformation in the character of warfare from antiquity, changing military tactics and the role of cavalry and artillery. Similar patterns of warfare existed in other parts of the world. In China around the fifth century armies moved from massed infantry to cavalry based forces, copying the steppe nomads. The Middle East and North Africa used similar, if often more advanced, technologies than Europe. In Japan the Medieval warfare period is considered by many to have stretched into the nineteenth century. In Africa along the Sahel and Sudan states like the Kingdom of Sennar and Fulani Empire employed Medieval tactics and weapons well after they had been supplanted in Europe.Some of the military unit types and technologies which were used in the medieval period are:
Artillery
Cataphract
Condottieri
Fyrd
Horse archer
Janissary
Knight (see also: Chivalry)
Longbow
Crossbow
Pikeman
Samurai
Sipahi
Fortification
Modern militaries
In modern times, war has migrated from an activity seeped in tradition to a scientific enterprise where success is valued above methods. The notion of total war is the extreme of this trend. Militaries have developed technological advances rivalling the scientific accomplishments of any other field of study.Some of the military unit types and technologies which were developed in modern times are:
Ammunition
Armory
Conscription
Grenadier
Sappers and Miners
Marine
Aviation
Musketeer
Rifleman
Special Forces
Naval Combatant
Global Information Grid
Active Electronically Scanned Array
Network-centric warfare
Supercomputer
Space warfare
Cyberwar
Reporting of military events
Gaining an accurate assessment of past military encounters may prove difficult because of bias, even in ancient times, and systematic propaganda in more modern times. Descriptions of battles by leaders may be unreliable due to the inclination to minimize mention of failures and exaggerate when boasting of successes. Further, military secrets may prevent some salient facts from being reported at all; scholars still do not know the nature of Greek fire, for instance. Despite these limitations, wars are some of the most studied and detailed periods of human history.Military historians
Some of the most notable military historians include:Thucydides (460 BC - 395 BC)
Julius Caesar (100 BC - 44 BC)
Hans Delbrück (1848-1929)
Charles Oman (1860-1946)
Basil Liddell Hart (1895-1970)
John Keegan (1934-2012)
Types of warfare
There are a number of ways to categorize warfare. One categorization is conventional versus unconventional, where "Conventional" warfare involves well-identified, armed forces fighting one another in a relatively open and straightforward way without weapons of mass destruction. "Unconventional" refers to other types of war which can involve raiding, guerrilla, insurgency, and terrorist tactics or alternatively can include nuclear, chemical, or biological warfare.All of these categories usually fall into one of two broader categories: High intensity and low intensity warfare. High intensity warfare is between two superpowers or large countries fighting for political reasons. Low intensity warfare involves counterinsurgency, guerilla warfare and specialized types of troops fighting revolutionaries. See also: asymmetrical warfare.
Technological Evolution
New weapons development can dramatically alter the face of war.Gettysburg had spectacular casualties in US history because military training was based on historical lessons, but Long guns had developed more accuracy at a greater distance, and the tactics had not evolved.
At the start of the World Wars, various nations had developed weapons that were a surprise to their adversaries, leading to a need to learn from this, and alter how to combat them.
There were also organizational changes, made possible by better training and intercommunication.
Combined Arms was the concept of using infantry, cavalry, and artillery in a coordinated way. The Romans, Swiss and others made advances with this, which arguably led to them being unbeatable for centuries.
Advances
When was the Chariot invented? It must have made a dramatic change to the battlefield when it first arrived.When were the first wooden ships invented, and used in war? There was human oar power, often using slaves, built up to ramming speed. Long before the steam engine, there were sailing ships, armed with various kinds of Cannon.
Galleys were used in the 3rd millennium BC by the Cretes then the Greeks advanced their science.
The Vikings, in the 8th century AD, invented a ship propelled by oars with a dragon decorating the prow, hence called the Drakkar.
As long as there have been fortifications, there have been contraptions to break in, dating back to the times of Romans and earlier. Subsequent invention of Gunpowder dramatically altered this technology.
British Longbow from 12th century.
It dominated battlefields for over a century.
In the 10th century, the invention of Gunpowder led to many new weapons that got improved over time. Blackpowder was used in China since the 4th Century, but it was not weaponized until the 11th Century.
Until mid 15th century, guns were held in one hand, while the explosive charge was ignited by the other hand. Then came the Matchlock.
Leonardo da Vinci made drawings of the Wheel lock which made its own sparks.
At the beginning of the 16th century, the first European Fire ships were used. Take a perfectly good ship, fill it with flammables, set it on fire, and send it into enemy lines.
Bayonet is named after Bayonne France where it was first manufactured in the 16th century.
Naval mines were invented in the 17th century, not used in great numbers until the American Civil War, were used heavily in WW II. Today Land mines are a major civilian hazard in nations that have had past wars.
Howitzer arrived in 17th century to fire hire trajectory explosive shells at targets that could not be reached by flat trajectory projectiles.
Submarine invented in 1624
Balloons first used in warfare in the end of the 18th century. Previously military scouts could only see from high points on ground, or from mast of a ship. Now they could be high in the sky, signalling to troops on the ground. This made it much more difficult for troop movements to go unobserved.
In the 1860's there were a series of advancements in rifles.
The first repeating rifle was designed in 1860 by a company bought out by Winchester, which made new and improved versions.
Also in the 1860's came the first boats that would later be known as Torpedo Boats
Springfield rifles arrived in the mid 19th century
Machine guns arrived in the middle of the 19th century,
Automatic rifles, or light machine guns, first arrived at the beginning of the 20th century.
The French were first to introduce the Armored Car in 1902. Then in 1918, the British produced the first Armored troop carrier. Many early Tanks were proof of concept but impractical until further development.
In 1911 an aircraft took off from a warship for the first time. It was a cruiser. Take offs were soon perfected, but deck landings on a cruiser were another matter. This led to the development of an Aircraft Carrier with a decent unobstructed flight deck.
Chemical warfare exploded into the public consciousness in WW I but may have been used in earlier wars without as much human attention.
Flame throwers first used in WW I.
Molotov cocktail invented by the Finns in 1939.
Radar was independently invented by the Allies and Axis powers.
Atomic Bomb developed by the Manhattan Project and let loose on the world in 1945.
Nuclear submarine invented in 1955. This meant submarines no longer had to surface as often, and could run more quietly. They evolved into becoming underwater missile platforms.
Cruise Missiles invented in USA in 1982.