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Publisher's Summary

Here Geoffrey Hindley serves us the history of military sieges from every angle, tracing the development of fortifications and equipment (offensive and defensive), penning vivid portraits of the weapons involved, exploring the psychology of laying siege, and even describing the role played by women and camp followers in battle. He shows siege tactics in action through real-life case studies of famous sieges that changed the course of history in medieval Europe and the Holy Land. His stimulating and accessible study will be fascinating reading for medieval specialists and for anyone who is interested in the history of warfare.
©2009, 2014 Geoffrey Hindley (P)2013 Audible Inc.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Plenty of Detail for a Short Book

When you read the longer history tomes, be they about a specific period or maybe a larger overview, the minutae of what goes into siege warefare is usually glossed over with broad strokes. This book is for all of you armchair historians and fantasy gamers out there who want details. This book talks about everything from the weapons and baggage train to the roles of women and the digging of underground tunnels. The more you know about the general history and politics of a given era, the more you'll appreciate the details, but ultimately it's really not necessary as those broad strokes are provided as a reverse of most other history books.

3 of 3 people found this review helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars
  • Glaudrung
  • Among the Eldrich Horrors
  • 06-23-18

Iffy

This book has a lot of information that is very good whether or not one akready has some knowledge of medieval war. But the rating is because it wasn't well writen
First it follows the sieges that are popularly known as medieval, such that it could be called late middle ages siegecraft and no one could notice.
Second is that it's disorganized. It is arranged by subject (like construction, logistics, and sacking) even though most of the book is spent on noteworthy sieges and people. The result is that an unorganized series of articles from totally different wars and backgrounds are mixed together.
Third for a book specifically about castle building and sacking it spends a lot of time on chivalric and political aspects of sieges and glosses over most of the engineering techniues that make castle look the way they do.
So, in my opinion, this book needs to decide what it wants to be.