Product Description

From the Trojan War to World War II and beyond, The Oxford Companion to Military History brings together an international team of more than 150 experts who illuminate war's bloody past.
Ranging from the Alamo and Amphibious Operations to Marshal Zhukov and the Zulu War, here are 1,300 alphabetically arranged entries that provide a wealth of information on warfare from the classical period to the present day, including the social, political, technological, and economic background of major conflicts. There are biographical profiles on military leaders (Napoleon, Caesar, Eisenhower), theorists (von Clausewitz, Sun Tzu), and inventors (Fulton), among other notable figures. The contributors also discuss weapons and equipment; wars, campaigns, and battles; strategy and tactics; espionage and propaganda; logistics and fortifications; and military life, literature, and medicine. In addition, the book includes many wide-ranging contextual entries on topics as diverse as animals in war, pacifism, and venereal disease. The Companion boasts 75 specially commissioned maps, 20 in-text line diagrams, extensive cross-referencing, and guides to further reading.
With superb coverage of land warfare in Europe and North America, plus numerous entries on war in the air and at sea around the world and throughout history, The Oxford Companion to Military History is the most wide-ranging and authoritative reference on all aspects of military history currently available.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #260480 in Books
• Published on: 2001-08-02
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 1072 pages

From Library Journal
Since there is no end to this planet's being plagued by wars, there is concomitantly no end to books on military history. The latest addition to the publisher's illustrious "Companion" series is this elegantly edited volume of essays covering people, places, and all things military since the beginning of recorded time when, it seems, wars also began. Holmes (military and security studies, Cranfield Univ. and the British Royal Military Coll. of Science) has obtained the talents of nearly 150 other prominent military historians in crafting more than 1300 entries relating to battles, generals, weapons, diplomats, military theorists, and nearly every other conceivable nuance generated by our incessant need for armed conflict. Excellent maps accompany entries about specific battles, and most entries conclude with a short, useful bibliography. One may quibble now and then about the sources recommended for further reading why, for example, is there no mention of Donald Smythe's Guerrilla Warrior (o.p.), an outstanding biography of John J. Pershing? but all in all this is a reference tool of remarkable quality. Highly recommended for both public and academic libraries. Ed Goedeken, Iowa State Univ. Lib., Ames
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Holmes is professor of Military and Security Studies at Cranfield University and the Royal Military College of Science. He has presented two popular BBC Television series on military history and authored six monographs on the subject.

Although this reference work surveys all military services from ancient to modern time periods, it emphasizes land warfare in Europe and North America from the eighteenth through the twentieth centuries. It contains approximately 1,300 entries arranged in an A-Z format written by some 148 contributors from Great Britain, Europe, and North America. There are 31 feature articles of two or more pages on topics such as Artillery, Infantry, Logistics, Peacekeeping, Tactics, and Women in the military. Appropriately placed throughout the text are 70 black-and-white maps and 15 black-and-white illustrations. Entries are cross-referenced and signed, and many contain a short bibliography of one to five items at the end.

There are numerous single-volume reference tools with coverage similar to that of The Oxford Companion to Military History. One recent example is Cowley's Readers Companion to Military History (Houghton Mifflin, 1996), which has more than 600 entries, 40 maps, and 89 black-and-white illustrations. All entries are signed, and most have short bibliographies. Holmes compares favorably with Cowley, with more entries and maps but fewer illustrations. The Oxford Companion to Military History should be considered by high-school, public, and academic libraries that need a convenient military history guide. RBB
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
`a must for anyone interested in war and its influence' Daily Express, 31/03/01

`The name Richard Holmes is to military history what Made in Britain once was to manufactured goods. . . The Oxford Companion to Military History is a most agreeable companion: faithful, authoritative and never dull.' Allan Mallinson, The Times, 28/03/01

`The book will provide hours of happy browsing for those with an interest in wars and warriors' Max Hastings, Evening Standard, 12/03/01

`A deeply impressive encyclopedia of warfare' Military Illustrated May 2001

Customer Reviews

Boldly Provocative, yet, Earthy
In this incisive powerful reference book you can pick your date and time. It's a learn-as-you-go or pick-and-hunt adventure, whatever may be your fancy at the time. I found it lucid and compelling. My only regret with my newest book is that I didn't take the time to research more. If details are a must, you'll enjoy Holmes' effort here.

Excellent for what it offers....though it's lacking....
I really love a book I just got, called the "Encyclopedia of Battles: From 1479 B.C. to Present"...that's a great book, not because it gives super large descriptions of battles, but because it HAS every battle and war in history. It also includes wars, and lists battles in order of these wars. I do not mind the lack of information, since I am merely using this book to look things up online in detail at wikipedia.com, so I'll be an expert on war and battles in history.

Now, onto this book, Oxford's Companion to Military History. Flipping through it, the first you notice (after reading part of the book above and playing a bunch of WWII shooter games) is that the Battle of Aachen is not present. Well, this can't be good, since that important battle was the first American victory over a German town. I have been searching to see if it tells anywhere about this book, because I am starting to wonder if it is biased and only tells British views and ignores other wars a lot.

The Golden Horde's battles, the Hundred Years War, the Crusades, and many famous wars in history are not even discussed, yet women fighting in war is discussed over two pages....pathetic. I am interested in learning about ALL history, but mainly World War II and medieval battles, and this book lacks both of those heavily, though it DOES excel in listing people, things, etc. and not ONLY battles, and this is a good thing. I love reading and seeing Generals and Captains and ranks and weapons! Refreshing! So, if you love wars, get this AS WELL AS "The Encyclopedia of Battles: From 1479 B.C. to Present", and use your internet to read up on battles up close, and also manage to check out some books on JUST that particular battle, and you'll do fine. For only 600 pages, the Encyclopedia of Battles beats Oxford's 1000.

I recently got World War II: Day By Day, and it's by far the best World War II book ever written, in the fashion of newspaper clippings from each day since the war began! Go get this book, it has 700 or so pages in it! Great read!

Military History: A Dispassionate View
War is both bloody and chaotic, yet if one wishes to understand it then one must not be so. In THE OXFORD COMPANION TO MILITARY HISTORY, editor Richard Holmes gathers the expertise of dozens of experts in military history to produce a massive text (more than 1,000 pages) on the entire spectrum of military history. When readers think of this topic they tend to think of battles and wars, and this text lists all the important ones and some that are known only to specialists. You want to know a one or two page summary of the battle of Stalingrad in 1942? Battles like this are discussed in detail and with clarity, often with surprisingly detailed illustrations and maps. Yet, this history includes far more than battles fought. Battles are not just set piece encounters of troop movements; they include the human element of both rank and file grunt and their respective commander. Further, battles are often won and lost solely on the basis of the technological superiority of one side over the other. Holmes' text includes all that and more. So for whom is this history intended? It it not for one who has no interest in matters of killing and strategy. It is for one who has a previous interest in a battle, a soldier, or a weapon. It is for one who has seen the film PEARL HARBOR and wishes to separate celluloid fantasy from historical fact. It is for the high school or college student who needs to know more than what is normally contained in a general history. And finally, it is for those who wish to have a handy one volume text of military arcana as the next step on a personal project or quest that involves using what Holmes' experts have to say. TOCMH is a superb gift to anyone who falls into any of the above categories.