The Battle 100: The Stories Behind History's Most Influential Battles

by Michael Lee Lanning

A single day in the heat of armed conflict can shape the future of the world. Throughout history, individual battles have inspired the birth of nations, the devastation of cultures and the triumph of revolutions. Yet while some battles rise up as the cornerstones of history, others fade in our cultural memory, forgotten as minor skirmishes. Why is this so? What makes a battle "important"? Celebrated veteran and military expert Michael Lee Lanning offers a provocative response with The Battle 100: The Stories Behind History's Most Influential Battles. Lanning ranks history's 100 greatest battles according to their influence, both immediate and long-term. Thought-provoking and controversial, Lanning's rankings take us to the heart of the battles and reveal their true greatness.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

368 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

Lieutenant Colonel Michael Lee Lanning (USA, Ret.) is an American retired military officer and writer of non-fiction, mostly military history.

After spending his early life in Texas, in 1964 Michael Lee Lanning graduated from Trent High School (Trent, Texas) and entered Texas A&M University (College Station, Texas), where in 1968 he earned a BS in Agricultural Education.

Upon graduation from Texas A&M in 1968, Lanning was commissioned a second lieutenant and received infantry, airborne, and ranger training at Fort Benning, Georgia. After serving as a platoon leader in the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, he was ordered to the Republic of Vietnam where he served as an infantry platoon leader, reconnaissance platoon leader, and rifle company commander in the 2d Battalion, 3rd Infantry Regiment of the 199th Light Infantry Brigade. During subsequent tours of duty he served throughout the United States and Germany, as (among other things) an instructor in the U.S. Army Ranger School, a mechanized infantry company commander in the 3rd Infantry Division, and executive officer of an infantry battalion in the 1st Cavalry Division. He also served in several non-command assignments, including positions as public affairs officer, serving in that role first for General H. Norman Schwarzkopf and later as a member of the Department of Defense public affairs office. In 1979, he earned an MS in Journalism from East Texas State University (Commerce, TX); he was selected to attend the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College (Fort Leavenworth, KS) that same year.

Lt. Col. Lanning's first book, 'The Only War We Had: A Platoon Leader's Journal of Vietnam' was published by Ivy Books/Ballantine Books/Random House, Inc. in September 1987.

Reviews

[WarpDrive · Rating 1 out of 5]

Pretty bad. I got it for free and this is the right price for it.
Many maps are terrible, there are several mistakes, and there are some generalizations that made me cringe. Not for the lovers of accurate historical analysis. Painful reading. The author can't even tell the difference between the Eastern and Western Roman Empire.

[Andrew · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's always a good way to start a debate by ranking anything. This book is no exception. It contains some pretty basic 2 to 3 page blurbs about famous battles. Not much new here, but one can certainly quibble with the rankings - which skew highly American in nature. I can't see how Yorktown could possibly be the most influential battle of all-time. The author ranks the Battle of Salamis - which essentially saved Western Civilization as we know it from Persian/Near Eastern take over as only #14. If you want to talk about the world being a different place, try not having the Greeks flourish and spread their culture for the next 2,500 years. A quick read and mildly interesting at times. My biggest complaint isn't the rankings, but the low quality maps. These could have been much better and would have greatly improved one's understanding of the battles.

[Errikos Kalyvas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ok, good if you want to have a quick idea. I skipped a lot of these though since I was not interested in all of them.

[Bart · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not really worth it. Extremely US/Euro-centric, with a heavily conservative bent -- for example, the author thinks that Yorktown is the most influential battle in all history (wouldn't Saratoga, Valley Forge/Trenton, or Bunker Hill have been better choices if we were ranking an American Revolution battle #1?), and also seems to think that Walter Cronkite single-handedly made the US lose the Vietnam War. Doesn't apply any intellectual rigor to any of his analysis.

On the other hand, the battles are described clearly and concisely. Still, there are many other, better books that rank battles that are more worth reading.

[Richard Jackson · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting book for the military history reader like myself. These are not necessarily famous battles that most readers of military history are familiar. Rather, the author chose these battles for their far reaching effect on future events. Each battle is described in about 4-5 pages but again it is the author's explanation as to the impact the battle had on future events is of the most interest. i did skip many battle descriptions as i was familiar with them but I did read the analyses for each.

[Rimaldo · Rating 4 out of 5]

An entry-level book into history’s most important conflicts. It gives the reader a general perspective of why, when, where, who, and how battles took place and most importantly, what was obtained. I really enjoyed the book, since it puts you at the door of these battles, inviting you to dig deeper if the reader decides.

[Erin Field · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thinking Day Finland 2025

[Michael Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Anytime you put together a list of the “100 Most” anything, you can expect to start arguments, and this collection of two- and three-page summaries of military and naval engagements is no exception. The coverage ranges from Megiddo, around 1479 BC, to only one more recent thatn the Golan Heights in 1967. All the obvious choices are here, including Gettysburg, Inchon, Trafalgar, Plassey, Normandy, Stalingrad, and Hastings, but many others are probably new even to many military history buffs, like Alexander’s victory at Arbela-Gaugamela in 331 BC, which spelled the end of the Persian Empire, or Muhammad’s success in battle at Mecca in 630, which virtually guaranteed the continued existence of Islam in the Near East, or Yenan in 1934, where Mao Tse-Tung ended the Long March by destroying the Nationalist Chinese army and ensured the survival of the People’s Republic of China, with enormous repercussions on the second half of the 20th century. However, Lanning shows an uncomfortable America-centrism in ranking battles. The Number One spot goes to the Battle of Yorktown in 1781 -- which, while a key event in establishing the United States as an independent nation, may turn out to have been considerably less important if it’s looked back on a thousand years from now. On the other hand, without Charles Martel decisively bringing to a halt the Muslim advance into Western Europe at the Battle of Tours in 732 (only no. 24 on his list), Medieval and Renaissance Europe would never have taken place and the entire cultural and philosophical milieu which gave rise to the American Revolution -- or even, perhaps, to the colonization of the New World in the first place -- would never have happened. I count twenty-two battles in the list -- nearly a quarter of the total -- in which the U.S. or the American colonies played a major role, and that’s far too many when you consider the whole history of the world. While I don’t see any important engagements that were omitted, some, like San Jacinto (which is certainly important to Texans like me), are much too minor on the global scale to be included on this list in the first place. Likewise, Desert Storm in 1991 is turning out to be much less significant in the long run than the Bush administration would have liked us to believe.

[Yolande · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it, plan on re-reading this year.
I'm usually critical of any history book, as 'history is written by the victors', but this one doesn't pontificate.
Well explained, and with maps to help you visualise the battles.
It also clearly explain why the author chose the battle and why he assigned them that particular rank.
It makes you interested in reading about the history surrounding those events.


And I've re-read it. Still a great book. My only 'negative' is that there seems to be an inordinate amount of battles are American, and most are victorious. I believe the only 'defeat' by the Americans in this book is Little Big Horn. It gives the book a slight bias.
All 100 battles are highly significant, but there might have been others that should have made the book instead.
Oh well!

[Carolyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Started reading the book. Each couple of pages is a description of the strategy pertaining to great battles all throughout history. Didnt have time to finish it, so it's on my "to be continued" list. Easy read if you take one or two "battles" per day.

[Little Timmy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very well written reference book. The writer does a fantastic job telling about not only the battle but the events leading up to it's cause and the effects it has had on both world and military events since then. Nice book to read a few pages a day to learn something new. Very recommended

[Adam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Book full of many battles from the early Roman Age to the end of World War II. Wonderful.

[Amr Waheed · Rating 3 out of 5]

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