The Battles that Changed History

by Fletcher Pratt

Time and again, the course of Western civilization has been forever changed by the outcome of a clash of arms. In this thought-provoking volume, the eminent author and historian Fletcher Pratt profiles 16 decisive struggles from ancient and modern times, ranging from Alexander the Great's defeat of the Persians at the Battle of Arbela to World War II's Battle of Midway, in which U.S. forces halted the Japanese advance. Each of these conflicts, despite considerable variations in locale and warfare techniques, represents a pivotal situation — a scenario in which a different outcome would have resulted in a radically changed world. On history's broad canvas, Pratt paints dramatic portraits of battles fought by Roman legions, French archers, American rebels, and myriad other soldiers and sailors. In addition to gripping accounts of the actual battles, the author describes the full panorama of events leading up to the decisive clashes, as well as their historically important aftermath. Readers will also find fascinating facts and anecdotes about a dazzling cast of personalities associated with these epochal struggles, including Joan of Arc, Frederick the Great, Lord Nelson, Ulysses S. Grant, and many more.

Enhanced with 27 maps by Edward Gorey, and recounted with dramatic flair by a born storyteller, these authoritative narratives will appeal to students, historians, military buffs, and all readers interested in the forces that influence the tides of human history.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, War, Politics, Military Fiction, Military History

370 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1956

About the author

Murray Fletcher Pratt (1897–1956) was a science fiction and fantasy writer; he was also well-known as a writer on naval history and on the American Civil War.

Pratt attended Hobart College for one year. During the 1920s he worked for the Buffalo Courier-Express and on a Staten Island newspaper. In the late 1920s he began selling stories to pulp magazines. When a fire gutted his apartment in the 1930s he used the insurance money to study at the Sorbonne for a year. After that he began writing histories.

Wargamers know Pratt as the inventor of a set of rules for civilian naval wargaming before the Second World War. This was known as the "Naval War Game" and was based on a wargame developed by Fred T. Jane involving dozens of tiny wooden ships, built on a scale of one inch to 50 feet. These were spread over the floor of Pratt's apartment and their maneuvers were calculated via a complex mathematical formula. Noted author and artist Jack Coggins was a frequent participant in Pratt's Navy Game, and L. Sprague de Camp met him through his wargaming group.

Pratt established the literary dining club known as the Trap Door Spiders in 1944. The name is a reference to the exclusive habits of the trapdoor spider, which when it enters its burrow pulls the hatch shut behind it. The club was later fictionalized as the Black Widowers in a series of mystery stories by Isaac Asimov. Pratt himself was fictionalized in one story, "To the Barest", as the Widowers’ founder, Ralph Ottur.

Pratt is best known for his fantasy collaborations with de Camp, the most famous of which is the humorous Harold Shea series, was eventually published in full as The Complete Compleat Enchanter. His solo fantasy novels Well of the Unicorn and The Blue Star are also highly regarded.

Pratt wrote in a markedly identifiable prose style, reminiscent of the style of Bernard DeVoto. One of his books is dedicated "To Benny DeVoto, who taught me to write."

Reviews

[Jeff Greason · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've been wanting to read this book for years, ever since an enthusiastic recommendation by Jerry Pournelle. It was worth the wait. Pratt, of course, was a successful author of fiction as well as a student of military history, and he makes the battles come alive. Interesting both because of his focus on what he calls the "decisive" battles (by which he means something rather different than the usual mention of the term -- explained in the text), and because of the sweep of the ages and cultures in his work, from the wars of the ancient Greeks and Persians through the battle of Midway. While some will likely be familiar to the reader, the totality of them probably is not save to the professional; I've read military history, casually, off and on, for forty years now and hadn't run in to as good an account of many of these battles.

Thanks to the Dover edition is now eminently affordable and worth the read.

[Layne · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book covered the history of Western Civilization through focusing on the pivotal wars and battles. I don't know when it began happening to me, but as I grow older, I appreciate history more and more. Events and people from the past mean more to me every year as I see their echoes in the modern world. I don't think I could have fully appreciated this book until this decade of my life, but now it left me wanting to study many of these time periods in more detail.

The strength of this book is that it provides a high-level summary of key historical moments. It is not easy reading--it would not work as an audio book! Each sentence requires thought and imagination to understand, but I found it well worth the effort. Written in 1956, it doubtlessly is missing out on some recent historical findings, but I'm not complaining since it gave me a great basis for further study. In summary, this is the most influential non-fiction book for me that I've read in many years.

[Charlie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A vast range of warfare was well covered by this author - from war elephants to aircraft carriers. Each battle was well introduced with lots of context and then a detailed account given of the movement of units, followed by why it was decisive in history.

This author seems to be a (1956) scholar and writes as such, not easy flowing like a David McCullough. I wonder if any post-WWII battles would have made his list.

[Googoogjoob · Rating 3 out of 5]

Inevitably somewhat dated (originally published 1956), but very readable. Pratt is a better storyteller than he is a historian. He doesn't really have much of a thesis here, and it feels like he's mostly just writing for the pleasure to be had in relating these stories. He's relatively idiosyncratic; this book is self-consciously in the tradition of Decisive Battles of the World books, and similarly Eurocentric, but Pratt's selections are somewhat irregular. He tends to weasel a bit about what he means by "decisive"- apparently "positive decisions" achieved on the field of battle that could have turned out differently- but one gets the sense he's gaming it a bit to write about campaigns and battles that personally interest him at the expense of those that don't. He covers some of the predictables- Gaugamela/Arbela, the Siege of Vienna, Rossbach, Trafalgar, Austerlitz; but then he opts to cover the Pyrrhic War and not the Punic Wars (on the grounds that, while battles might have come to different conclusions, the outcome of the wars was a foregone conclusion), the Nika riots, the Siege of Leiden; his coverage of the American Revolutionary War gives as much space to Anglo-French naval warfare in the Indian Ocean as to continental American warfare; he chooses to cover the more-impressive Vicksburg campaign instead of eg the more-feted Gettysburg (as Gettysburg was "negatively" decisive- a repulse, rather than an advance); and Midway instead of Stalingrad or Normandy. Al-Qadisiyyah is the only battle he covers not involving at least one Western power; he rather fatuously argues that, for all their massive battles, few if any battles in Asia or Africa were "decisive" by his standards. He takes inflated historical strength/casualty numbers a little too casually- he might say that a claimed strength of 100,000 men "can't be too far off" when the modern consensus is 50,000. A decent time.

[robert · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was surprised to read that Pratt is an American. I thought I was reading a poor English translation. Some of the word usages were almost foreign. Some very weak sentence structures. A lot of interesting info about early battles that I rarely heard about. More and detailed maps would have been helpful.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

A formative book from my youth. Pratt's accounts of battles are never simply military narratives; he has a way of explaining the political and social context of a battle or campaign to make a Gustavus Adolphus or Pyrrhus or Frederick the Great a relevant, living figure. But the best part of Pratt's books are the battle narratives themselves. Pratt's language is fresh and lively and enables the reader to understand the immediate military situation. Although not written specifically for young readers, this book will turn teenagers into avid students of world history.

[Michael Hicks · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is really filling in the blanks for me in terms of political and military history in the period between the Middle Ages and the Enlightenment. It's also reviving my interest in strategy and tactics.

[David Rugge · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a good introduction to military history. My main complaint is that the book needed more maps to help the reader visualize the battles. If you read this book, have the internet handy to pull up additional maps as needed.

[Bill · Rating 4 out of 5]

I usually don't like war-centric histories, but this book makes a really good argument about how the battles highlighted in this book really did change the course of history.

[Cool]

M&D SHELVES

[Tflinn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nice pace and nice touches of prose. A good primer on world history as history was changed by these battles.