This book is actually an encyclopedia of battles.

It is a good quick reference guide in that regard. The is well produced with a generous number of detailed maps.

The battles are organized by the war in which each was fought, so a reader may need to make frequent use of the table of contents because the organization within each major time period is a bit arbitrary.

What you will not get is much explanation about why each war was fought nor innovations within those wars.

You learn a bit about the trees, not much about the forests.

Yes, there are some errors but I have not yet found a number that would draw the whole into suspicion.

Every age has its own kind of war.

From the dawn of civilization, Wars have been fought in all kinds of ways, and for all kinds of reasons. The Encyclopedia of Warfare presents the reader with more than 5000 wars, across ages and covering different countries and civilizations, arranged chronologically. The Encyclopedia of Warfare features an immense range of battles from the ancient world to the present day, from the early Egyptians to Alexander the Great, From the Roman Empires to the Crusades, From the battles in South America to battles in Siberia. From the wars fought over religion to world wars, this book has it all.

This book is actually an encyclopedia of battles. At 1000 pages, this is a very large and ambitious book covering a huge timeline. The book is divided into different eras namely:
• Ancient Wars 2500 BCE to 500 CE
• Medieval Wars 500 CE to 1500 CE
• Early Modern Wars 1500 CE to 1775 CE
• Revolutionary Wars 1775 CE to 1815 CE
• Wars of Empire and Revolt 1825 CE to 1914 CE
• World Wars 1914 CE to 1945 CE
• Modern Wars 1945 onwards

The various battles are basically organized by date and groups into broad categories and empires. Each war includes descriptions of its campaigns, battles, and sieges. Featuring 600 full-color maps and expert summaries of battles, sieges, campaigns, and empires, The Encyclopedia of Warfare is an excellent compilation of almost every major fought so far. Quite frankly, I was amazed by the scope of the book. It covers all major battles in every continent and every major empire you can think of.

This book is obviously not meant to be read in one sitting but to be used as a reference book. Every battle is covered very briefly, so if you are looking for more details you will have a research online. So this book is a good read if you want a reference point to start your research on any given war or historical campaign. The information is typically very basic, frequently lacking a summary on what the objective of the battle. It would have been a lot more informative if a brief overview of the context of the campaign as a whole, with the final outcome, would have been provided. Also while the battles while being arranged chronologically, it could have been divided into continents for easy search.

Overall, The Encyclopedia of Warfare is an excellent resource for anyone from a casual history buff and students alike. It is meant to answer basic questions and aid you in further research or reading. If you are a history buff, this is a must-read encyclopedia.

Many thanks to the publishers Amber Books and Netgalley for the ARC.

This huge reference is for any student, teacher or even chroniclers of history who like to point out the one aspect of man that never seems to stop. Not a casual page read by any means, more of a oh what happened here later, oh what lead to that war or battle 200 years later. Expertly collected and full of colorful maps and facts. A fascinating study.

This is a very large and ambitious book with nearly 30 individual contributors covering a huge timeline. At the front are an index of wars and campaigns, an index of maps and charts and a nice timeline of civilization as a whole. After that, the various conflicts are basically organized by date and groups into broad categories (with only a limit description of the division criteria):

Ancient Wars 2500 BCE to 500 CE
Medieval Wars 500 CE to 1500 CE
Early Modern Wars 1500 CE to 1775 CE
Revolutionary Wars 1775 CE to 1815 CE
Wars of Empire and Revolt 1825 CE to 1914 CE
World Wars 1914 CE to 1945 CE
Modern Wars 1945+

Almost all of the information provided is under specific headers for a given battle within a conflict or campaign. The information is typically very basic, frequently lacking summary on what the objective of the battle was (focused more on a description of the forces and outcome, with some having maneuvers as well). In addition, the war/conflict headings were empty of any summary on the ‘casus belli’ and ultimate outcome. This gives the impression of a simple list of battles. Reinforcing this impression is how each section was actually organized … just by date, so it was not uncommon to jump across continents making it difficult to keep track of such conflicts … this would have been a lot better if there were geographic subdivisions (and a map). . Minor conflict with only one or two battles should have always been groups together. This was not consistent, and I assume a result of the many contributors (which I acknowledge can be difficult to manage). Examples:

Post Roman Britain (500 - 1500)
Franks (500 - 1000)
Byzantium (500 - 1000)
Turkist Empire (600 - 1299)
Muslim Expansion (624 - 1100)
China Tang Dynasty (581 - 950)
Korea (600 - 1100)
Norse Expansion (800 - 1066)
Norman England (1066 - 1200)
Holy Roman Empire (900 - 1259)
China Song/Ming (960 - 1644)
Scandinavian Kingdoms (1157 - 1471)

This makes the encyclopedia good, but short of its potential.

I was given this free advance reader copy (ARC) ebook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.
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