A History of Warfare

By: John Keegan

Narrated by: Frederick Davidson

Length: 19 hrs and 12 mins

Publisher's summary

Starting with the premise that all civilizations owe their origins to warmaking, Keegan probes the meanings, motivations, and methods underlying war in different societies over the course of more than two thousand years. Following the progress of human aggression in its full historical sweep, from the strangely ritualistic combat of Stone Age peoples to the warfare of mass destruction in the present age, his illuminating and lively narrative gives us all the world's great warrior cultures, including the Zulus, the samurai, and the horse peoples of the steppe, as well as the famed warmakers of the West. He shows why honor has always been accorded to the soldierly virtues, whatever the cultural context, and how war has maintained its singular hold on the imagination, reaching into "the most secret places of the human heart, places where self dissolves rational purpose, where pride reigns, where emotion is paramount, where instinct is king".

©1993 John Keegan (P)1994 Blackstone Audiobooks

Critic reviews

"A work of massive sweep...in which the resources of anthropology, ethnology, psychology, and history are drawn on in comprehensive but succinct synthesis to create what is perhaps the most remarkable study of warfare that has yet been written." (New York Times Book Review)

Definitely a history book

Very much a work of a history. If you enjoy learning a full history of warfare this is a great place to start. Just know this book is written by a historian and not a journalist. Therefore, it can be dry and difficult to get through some points. I would buy this book again and I will listen to it again.

A bit too general

This book was good. It is performed well. But, it is a general survey and a specialist will notice some over generalizations or inaccurate summaries/details. Not nearly as good as The Face of Battle or Six Armies in Normandy.

Evolutionary and godless perspective

Bad perspective, but has Some interesting insights and that is why I gave it 4 stars

FrederickDavidson reads more war

Frederick Davidson reads with his trademark velvet voice good war history. Fast paced history many be too much for those not already familiar with world history. Valuable information for more global perspective, albeit a bit heavier with Western history than rest of the world.

A Big Story to Tell

This book tries to cover a lot of territory from ancient tribal warfare to the nuclear bomb and post colonial rebellions. The book looks at social and technological aspects of warfare. Its long chapters with titles such as Stone, Flesh, Iron, and Fire loosely center around those topics. It is nearly impossible to separate them from one another.

The big takeaway from the book for me is how limited war really is. We put social limits on war such as not allowing women and children to participate. (Yes, there are exceptions.) There are technological limits such as how accurate a firearm can be. And there are logistical limits based on how can an army keep its fighters supplied with food, water, and munitions.

Of particular interest to me were the social and logistical limits. In primitive societies, it seems war is very ritualized and limited as to when, where, and how it is fought. Thus large scale death is avoided. Logistical limits seemed to limit the size of any fast growing, large scale empire such as the Huns or Alexander the Greats movement. It was also interesting to see how these limits can be somewhat thwarted, at least for a time, by the willingness of combatants to fight such as the Confederacy holding out against the United States in the American Civil War.

The only problem I had with the book was largely my own expectations. I would expect it go to go one way, and it would go another. Therefore, I was struggling with the text. I normally embrace this kind of challenge to my thinking, but for some reason, it just irritated me. I think I felt as if I was missing some important information. This book could have easily been twice the length and still not have been comprehensive enough for me. Maybe that was the real challenge I had with the book.

If you are interested in learning more about war, I would recommend this book.

Interesting - but not outstanding

This is a solid scholarly work. However, it is not exhaustive regarding the history of warfare and examines only several snippets to prove some anthropological points. These points are good, the work is solid and well-researched, but not greatly exciting. The narrator was solid, but the work was not the most exciting of Keegan's (whom I admire as a leader in his field).

If you like Keegan, get his book on the Iraq War. And please somebody narrate his Face of Battle books.

Academic, with exploratory chapters.

The interludes made the book much more valuable.

It is important for the reader to know that this book was published in the early 90’s, before the GWOT and perhaps before culture as an attack vector for warfare was appreciated in the West.

Not what I expected

I have mixed feelings about this book because its not a history of warfare as I expected it to be. First off, its not well structured. It meanders all over the place, challenging Clauswitz's notion that war is an extension of policy, delving into a history of the world in general (trashing various anthropologists along the way), and finally, after spending too much time on the ritualized warfare of primitive peoples, gets into some forms of fighting here and there. What I wanted (and expected) was to understand the evolution of warfare from the standpoint of technology, tactics, operations, and grand strategy. I hoped to walk away from the book with an understanding of how people fought in each era, the factors causing them to fight that way, and perhaps learn a little more about some famous battles along the way. I indeed did learn some of that from this book, and some of his meanderings are interesting, but I really had to wade through a lot of superfluous gibberish to get there. I also have to agree with another reviewer's comment that the book is pretentious. I like Keegan's work, but I have one suggestion for him: focus man.

Unique view on the History warfare

I found it worthwhile. I like Keegan of course the narration is in Posh English as is the writer. So following for some is a tiny bit of a challenge. Though worthwhile if you patiently focus. I'd have to listen to this several times to fully absorb the depth of the writer's point of view.

Terrific Keegan

I found this a terrific review of war over the millenia. Many insights, frequent references to the validity of Clausewitz's views. I wish I'd had Keegan as a professor.