History's Greatest Battles

by Nigel Cawthorne

History's Greatest battles covers the whole gamut of warfare, from huge sea battles involving hundreds of ships and thousands of men, to technological innovations, to single regiments who dug in and fought on long past the time when surrender would have been honourable. Chronologically organized for ease of reference and includes over sixty photographs and illustrations.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, War

208 pages, Hardcover

First published May 4, 2005

About the author

Nigel Cawthorne is an Anglo-American writer of fiction and non-fiction, and an editor. He has written more than 80 books on a wide range of subjects and has contributed to The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph Daily Mail and The New York Times. He has appeared on television and BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

Many of Nigel Cawthorne's books are compilations of popular history, without footnotes, references or bibliographies. His own web site refers to a description of his home as a "book-writing factory" and says, "More than half my books were commissioned by publishers and packagers for a flat fee or for a for a reduced royalty".

One of his most notable works was Taking Back My Name, an autobiography of Ike Turner, with whom he spent a number of weeks working with him on, taking up residence in Turner's house. The book caused much controversy, resulting in court cases for three years following its release.

Cawthorne currently lives in Bloomsbury, London with his girlfriend and son, Colin (born 1982).

Reviews

[Books and margaritas · Rating 3 out of 5]

I bet it is not easy to write a quick summary of history's greatest battles: not only one must choose which battles are considered to be the greatest, but also describe the battle itself and the relevant context in 20-30 pages. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that there is a full book dedicated to each of the battles included in this book by Nigel Cawthorne. Partly because of this challenge, I am going to be more forgiving in my review, but I am not going to deny it: I didn't really like this book.

Firstly, I was hoping to read more about the background context rather than the actual description / tactics of battles. I personally would prefer to have less battles covered in this book, but in greater detail, as I felt like there was not much context provided. Also, having maps or some other visual representation would have been helpful.

Secondly, to me it looked like the author, possibly unconsciously, was biased towards choosing battles involving white/European nations. Obviously, WWI and WWII were covered sufficiently, but I was hoping to read more about Asian/African conflicts and battles as well.

Finally, the book had some obvious punctuation and grammar typos which I personally found a bit annoying.

[Chris Quinn · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's more like Western Europe's Greatest Battles, there's no mention of asian, african or south american battles. It describes the battles fairly straightforwardly, but it could have done with some graphs showing troops movements, or some more explanation of the context around the battle.

[Biggus56 · Rating 1 out of 5]

This feels like a very lazy book, consisting of 10-page accounts of 'significant' battles, all cobbled together with no coherent thread. The accounts themselves often dissolve into "Then he did this. Then he did that," until they become meaningless strings of words; this tangle is severely worsened by the absence of maps, rendering the narrative nearly impossible to follow.
The account of Culloden (which bears little resemblance to others I have read) ends with "defeat at Culloden... paved the way for the union of Scotland and England in 1707." Culloden took place in 1746, nearly 40 years after the Act of Union. Having read such an incomprehensible piece of tosh, it was hard to trust anything else Cawthorne said.

[Randhir · Rating 4 out of 5]

The beauty of Cawthorne’s book is that he brings out vignettes and insights which add to one’s interest. One may not agree with his selection of battles and the lack of maps gets disconcerting. However, the battles are well described. To do some nitpicking I would have preferred Granicus to be replaced by Gaugemala, Constantinople by the Siege of Vienna, Bosworth by Towton, Baghdad by Haifa amongst others. I also wish that he had included some other significant battles like Bannockburn, Siege of Malta, a battle connected with the Mongol Conquest, Tannenburg and Moscow. Nevertheless I liked the book and it adds value to ones collection

[Roger Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

poorly edited as there were many grammatical errors. It would have been helpful to have had some maps of each area for those of us who do not know the detailed geography of the battlefields. I would not bother to buy another book by this author.

[Rajnish Kumar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Best book to understand different starting phase of the battle.It covers most of the greatest battle of all times, like Marathon.

[Nikolay Angelov · Rating 2 out of 5]

Greatest battles of history of England is more suitable title. The author is biased.

[Billhotto · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting information about WW II battles.

[Mark · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was very boring
Very condensed

[Katrina Lounsbury]

I was instantly surprised that I had no idea where “marathon” came from, wouldn’t have guessed it was from a historical battle, but loved learning about the history of it right at the very start.
I couldn’t imagine going to war with elephants in battle! It would be terrifying to not instinctively retreat.
I had no idea how Constantinople fell, nor what took its place or how Istanbul got its name, all of which was very interesting to learn. I find it so fascinating that a misunderstanding between languages is able to generate a new name.
I wish DNA technology could be used on bodies found in the 1600s - the way in which I would love to know if the bodies found were the princes.
It was really interesting reading about the battle over Quebec between the French and English, especially when I stood in those spots only a few years ago.

[Daniel Kukwa · Rating 3 out of 5]

It certainly succeeds as a concise work of historical reporting, that doesn't waste time getting bogged down in minute details that would only be missed by pedants. However, it only makes a token attempt to demonstrate the significance of these battles being collected together in one volume. If this is a list of key military confrontations in human history, a bit more unifying analysis would be most welcome. Unfortunately, it's absent...which renders this book merely informative & functional, when it should have been epic.

[Tom · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not a bad collection of the major battles of history and why they turned out as they did. Starting with Marathon and ending with Dien Bien Phu. A tad on the dry side but still interesting.