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Title: Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World: From Marathon to Waterloo by Edward S. Creasy ISBN: 1-880881-04-7 Publisher: Landpost Press Pub. Date: January, 1992 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.29 (7 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Queasy on Creasy?
Comment: No less an authority than John Keegan has given this book his blessing, so don't be mislead by negative reviews. This book is a classic in the field of military history. No history is unbiased. History is an art not a science. And it is a great art. It can move and inspire as well as instruct us about human nature. Historical writers who can weave myth and symbolism in to their writing carry forward important ideas and concepts for the collective. This is precisely what Creasy has done in his book, organizing his material around the idea that war is productive of something. He influenced every writer of military history who followed. That in itself is enough to promote the book. "15 Decisive Battles" is an excellent introduction to general military history, a perspective often missing in college history courses. I read it many years ago and have since read many different treatments of these basic 15 battles. Ultimately one picks one's preferred viewpoint. Creasy is a generalist but for that very reason, this a good book to start with. Incidentally, I challenge the reviewer who questions the description of the Battle of Teutoburger Wald. I have read the Latin version in Latin and the German version in German and they are absolutely consistent with this British version. I was quite amazed, so try it and see for yourself. I love this book and I really want to recommend it to you. I give it 5 stars and no, I am not queasy on Creasy.
Rating: 3
Summary: At times good, overall so-so history; good historiography
Comment: It's difficult to rate this book, since it depends on one's purposes in reading it. As history, Sir Creasy's book is of uneven quality, with many essays decently crafted and a few basically tripe; but as historiography, it's a rare and fascinating window into the Victorian mindset and worldview. Creasy published his book during the apogee of the British Empire, in the 1850s, when the country's rule over distant lands was both incredibly expansive after nearly a century of settling and warring, and seemingly secure 35 years after Napoleon's ignominious defeat in the fields of Waterloo. He is at his best especially in describing the ancient battles for which it is easier to maintain a scholarly distance; the battles of Marathon and Arbela, for example, are both well-researched and, overall, admirably portrayed. He is a first-rate wordsmith with an extraordinary command of the art of prose, with an evocative ability to build an image of a battle and its belligerents-- it's the kind of heroic fluff that we so often find suffusing the collective memory that Victorian authors put down on paper, only better in its stylistic and rhetorical aspects. One of the book's most useful characteristics, indeed, is the degree and manner in which it utilizes primary sources; it's a bibliographical treasure in this regard. But Creasy makes not even a furtive attempt to hide his biases and inclinations, especially in regard to events perceived to be antecedent to the British Empire that he so lauds at every turn. To be fair, he's not a blind nationalist. He does, for example, provide one of the most measured and detailed evocations of the extraordinary changes wrought by Peter the Great and the resultant rise of Russia in his description of the Battle of Poltava. He acknowledges the unparalleled contribution of Britain's erstwhile rival, the French, to civilization in his essay on Joan of Arc and the Battle of Orleans.
But in many essays the book comes off as basically a panegyric that extols the Anglo-Saxon nation, freely interpolating editorial comments and boasting an unabashed triumphalism, at times even gleefully twisting facts and analysis to suit the proto-Kiplingesque notions of the empire on which no one believed the sun would ever set. The essay on the Teutoberger Wald battle of 9 A.D. frankly made me cringe. Not only are their numerous omissions, tenuous stretches of logic and dubious, clearly biased interpretations (for which an objective analysis would cast serious doubt over his choice of this battle at all in terms of actual significance)-Creasy displays a distressingly outspoken nationalism that seems overwrought even by the standards of his own time. His essay on the Spanish Armada is similar in its chest-thumping, to the extent it entirely neglects to mention the 16-year naval war (and the Spanish victories therein) that transpired after the 1588 battle; the essays on Blenheim and Valmy suffer from the same ailment. The essay on the Battle of Poitiers pitting the Franks against the Moslem forces in 732 comes off as an encomium to the Frankish leader rather than a historical examination, though admittedly Creasy's use of various primary sources and his consideration of some of the battle's details are exemplary. His study of Hastings is even-handed and remarkably detailed. Possibly the most fascinating composition concerns the Battle of Saratoga in the American Revolution, glimpsed through British eyes; one gets a sense of the bitterness and despair that the British defeat induced for the nation that could have so easily possessed quite a jewel in her empire! Basically, as history, Creasy's book is somewhat spotty-it doesn't even pretend to be objective, and there are more than a few oversights and misconstruances. But many of the essays are of high quality from any standpoint, and you can't fault Creasy for the detail, writing style, and especially the lucid use of primary sources that he brings to his book; if a reader is careful to document sources and check facts, it's possible to learn a good deal. The book's greatest value, however, lies in the fact that it enables a reader to peer into the thought processes that drove a Victorian writer upon rising in the morning; it's rare to have such an opportunity to actually gauge how people of a previous era *thought* as well as acted, and undoubtedly for this the book is quite useful.
Rating: 2
Summary: Surreal History
Comment: After reading this book, especially on the Battle of Teutoburgerwald (AD 9), I was puzzled as to why it was considered a classic. Apparently, I am not alone in this opinion -- W. S. Gilbert mocked the book in Major General Stanley's patter song in the Pirates of Penzance. Schooled in the Edward Gibbon type of history, the author twists facts and interpretation to glorify the Anglo-Saxon "race." While this can be taken with a grain of salt and used to generate a chuckle or two, its value as serious history is overrated. Because of its definite bias, while the book should not be avoided, it also should not be used as an introduction to the subject, nor, especially, as the student's sole exposure to military history.
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Title: 100 Decisive Battles: From Ancient Times to the Present by Paul K. Davis ISBN: 0195143663 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: June, 2001 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
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Title: The Battles that Changed History by Fletcher Pratt ISBN: 048641129X Publisher: Dover Pubns Pub. Date: 27 March, 2000 List Price(USD): $11.95 |
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Title: 50 Battles That Changed the World: The Conflicts That Most Influenced the Course of History by William Weir ISBN: 1564144917 Publisher: New Page Books Pub. Date: August, 2001 List Price(USD): $24.99 |
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Title: The Battle 100: The Stories Behind History's Most Influential Battles by Michael Lee Lanning, Bob Rosenburgh ISBN: 1570717990 Publisher: Sourcebooks Trade Pub. Date: May, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: A Military History of the Western World: From the Earliest Times to the Battle of Lepanto by J. F. C. Fuller ISBN: 0306803046 Publisher: DaCapo Press Pub. Date: May, 1988 List Price(USD): $19.00 |
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