Overview
John Keegan's groundbreaking portrayal of the common soldier in the heat of battle—a masterpiece that explores the physical and mental aspects of warfare The Face of Battle is military history from the battlefield: a look at the direct experience of individuals at the ""point of maximum danger."" Without the myth-making elements of rhetoric and xenophobia, and breaking away from the stylized format of battle descriptions, John Keegan has written what is probably the definitive model for military historians. And in his scrupulous reassessment of three battles representative of three different time periods, he manages to convey what the experience of combat meant for the participants, whether they were facing the arrow cloud at the battle of Agincourt, the musket balls at Waterloo, or the steel rain of the Somme. The Face of Battle is a companion volume to John Keegan's classic study of the individual soldier, The Mask of Command: together they form a masterpiece of military and human history.
Full Product Details
Author: John Keegan
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Imprint: Penguin Books Ltd
Edition: New edition
Dimensions:
Width: 13.00cm
, Height: 1.70cm
, Length: 19.70cm
Weight: 0.255kg
ISBN: 9780140048971
ISBN 10: 0140048979
Pages: 384
Publication Date: 27 January 1983
Audience:
General/trade
,
General
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: In Print
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Reviews
The most brilliant evocation of military experience in our time <br> --C.P. Snow <br><br> In this book, which is so creative, so original, one learns as much about the nature of man as of battle. <br> --J.H. Plumb, The New York Times Book Review<br><br> This without any doubt is one of the half-dozen best books on warfare to appear in the English language since the end of the Second World War. <br> --Michael Howard, The Sunday Times<br><br> A totally original and brilliant book <br> --The New York Review of Books
The most brilliant evocation of military experience in our time --C.P. Snow In this book, which is so creative, so original, one learns as much about the nature of man as of battle. --J.H. Plumb, The New York Times Book Review This without any doubt is one of the half-dozen best books on warfare to appear in the English language since the end of the Second World War. --Michael Howard, The Sunday Times A totally original and brilliant book --The New York Review of Books
The most brilliant evocation of military experience in our time C.P. Snow In this book, which is so creative, so original, one learns as much about the nature of man as of battle. J.H. Plumb, The New York Times Book Review This without any doubt is one of the half-dozen best books on warfare to appear in the English language since the end of the Second World War. Michael Howard, The Sunday Times A totally original and brilliant book The New York Review of Books
The most brilliant evocation of military experience in our time --C.P. SnowIn this book, which is so creative, so original, one learns as much about the nature of man as of battle. --J.H. Plumb, The New York Times Book Review This without any doubt is one of the half-dozen best books on warfare to appear in the English language since the end of the Second World War. --Michael Howard, The Sunday Times A totally original and brilliant book --The New York Review of Books
The most brilliant evocation of military experience in our time --C.P. Snow In this book, which is so creative, so original, one learns as much about the nature of man as of battle. --J.H. Plumb, <b>The New York Times Book Review</b> This without any doubt is one of the half-dozen best books on warfare to appear in the English language since the end of the Second World War. --Michael Howard, <b>The Sunday Times</b> A totally original and brilliant book --<b>The New York Review of Books</b></p></p></p>
...still widely regarded as his best despite more than 20 other works. - The Guardian The most brilliant evocation of military experience in our time -C.P. Snow In this book, which is so creative, so original, one learns as much about the nature of man as of battle. -J.H. Plumb, The New York Times Book Review This without any doubt is one of the half-dozen best books on warfare to appear in the English language since the end of the Second World War. -Michael Howard, The Sunday Times (London) A totally original and brilliant book -The New York Review of Books The book which changed how military history is written. Keegan set out to discover what it must have been like to be present at Agincourt, Waterloo and the Somme - and he succeeded brilliantly. -- Bernard Cornwell (Chosen as number one of his six best books) Daily Express (London)
Sixty years ago, Pound argued for a scholarship of the telling fact; he would have to commend this splendid history, in which John Keegan gives us the spectacle of battle with such luminous and precise detail that not only battle's gruesome distress for the common soldier, but also the circumjacent conditions of battles fought and won, become vividly clear. The specific British victories Keegan examines are three, and take place over a period of 500 years and a geographical range of 100 miles: the battle of Agincourt, where Henry V fought by the side of his 6,000 archers and cavalrymen, each in sixty pounds of armor, man-to-man; Waterloo, where Wellington rode all day behind the cannons to stay near the heaviest fighting; and the Somme in 1916, where the British lost thousands of men in the first minutes of battle, and where only the junior officers saw action. Keegan suggests that operations on the Somme set some limit to what men could stand on the battlefield; his thesis - and he draws imaginatively from official histories, military records, soldiers' reminiscences, and the British literature of war to demonstrate it - is that when the gulf between social life and battlefield existence has become too gaping, the fighting soldier may refuse to fight, and battles may become impossible to win. This is a book unusual in its research and intelligence, to be read by everyone - and not least our military leadership. Book-of-the-Month Club selection. (Kirkus Reviews)
This is a modern classic: a brilliant treatise on how and why men fight in wars; based on survivors' accounts analysed by the distinguished military historian. It proved to be the writing on the wall for the boring, de-humanized chess-board of military history. Using the battles of Agincourt, Waterloo and the Somme, Keegan thrusts the imagiantion of the reader into the front line of death, fear and maiming. Review by Anthony Beevor, whose books include the prize-winning 'Stalingrad' (Kirkus UK)
Author Information
Sir John Desmond Patrick Keegan (1934–2012), was one of the most distinguished contemporary military historians and was for many years the senior lecturer at Sandhurst (the British Royal Military Academy) and the defense editor of the Daily Telegraph (London). Keegan was the author of numerous books including The Face of Battle, The Mask of Command, The Price of Admiralty, Six Armies in Normandy, and The Second World War, and was a fellow at the Royal Society of Literature.
