The Face of Battle: An Exploration of the Battlefields of Agincourt, Waterloo, and the Somme

LA in Dallas: I read John Keegan's The Face of Battle: A Study of Agincourt, Waterloo and the Somme fourteen years ago, in April 2009. I can be precise about that because that's when I ordered it from Amazon. I was reminded of it two days ago by two things. The first was an essay "Michael Taylor on John Keegan’s The Face of Battle: A Retrospective". The second was a chain of literary free associations. I recently finished Leigh Bardugo's Six of Crows series. Kaz Brekker and his team of Crows reminded me of Rudyard Kipling's Stalky & Co.. From there it was a short mental leap to the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, and from there to the only book I have read that I know to be by a Sandhurst professor, John Keegan. (To be accurate, I think I also read Keegan's A History of Warfare many many years ago, in time out of reach of an Amazon order search.)

I mention this because I feel that Kipling illuminates Keegan and The Face of Battle. Like Kipling, Keegan writes of "Famous Victories". What particularly distinguished The Face of Battle from earlier military scholarship was its focus on the soldiers as the people who won battles. And by soldiers I do not so much mean generals and kings...

United States on Apr 01, 2023

Amazon Customer: Cultura general

Mexico on Jan 01, 2023

Parsec: Ich fasse mich angesichts der hier bereits stehenden Rezensionen kurz: John Keegans THE FACE OF BATTLE ist ein spannend, lebendig und instruktiv geschriebenes Buch, welches jeder an (Militär-) Geschichte Interessierte durchaus einmal lesen sollte.

Keegan analysiert sehr kenntnisreich drei der bekanntesten Schlachten der Weltgeschichte, und er geht hierbei insbesondere auf die Perspektive des "normalen Soldaten" auf dem Schlachtfeld ein. Hierbei gelingt es Keegan, auch viele komplexe Details und historische Hintergrundinformationen sehr anschaulich zu vermitteln, selbst Leser, welche sich mit den behandelten Schlachten (Agincourt 1415, Waterloo 1815, Somme 1916) gut auskennen dürften hier noch neue und interessante Infos erhalten.

THE FACE OF BATTLE liest sich flüssig und zeichnet sich durch einen lebendigen Schreibstil aus, und auch wenn dieses Buch bereits mehrere Jahre auf dem Buckel hat ist es als Informationsquelle, z.B. für Wargamer, immer noch definitiv zu empfehlen.

Ich komme auf knappe, aber verdiente 5 Sterne.

Germany on Jul 27, 2022

Pnohan: Excellent research and good insights on warfare from the point of view of the ordinary soldiers on the ground. Covers three battles involving the English army, fought with technologies of medieval warfare, pre-industrial warfare and industrial warfare. A must have piece of reference material, with great insights for everyone to read.

The only reason for 4 stars is that the prose is too lengthy and windy, make the reading difficult at times.

India on Oct 28, 2019

patrick murphy: Very excellent study of the frontline fighter/ordinary man's skills and demeanours in battle. An ikonic study of the mentality of warfare through three separate ages ...

Canada on Aug 30, 2015

Paco Garcia: Reflexión seria y profunda sobre las dificultades y los condicionamientos de la historia militar y un estudio imprescindible sobre los hombres que participan directamente en la batalla. Keegan se aleja del enfoque de "estado mayor" para centrar su atención en las actitudes, pensamientos y sentimientos de los soldados que participan en el combate en tres épocas históricas muy concretas. Una obra que debería ser de lectura obligatoria para todos los lectores interesados en la historia, en general, y en la historia militar, en particular.

Spain on Sep 26, 2014

Bryan Byrd: In THE FACE OF BATTLE, author John Keegan, in his role as historian and not soldier, attempts to dissect the experience of battle as the common soldier knows it. The trouble with most accounts, he explains at length in his opening chapters, is that historians tend to focus on the win/lose aspects of the battle, or else how its outcome has affected the course of human events, or else been enamored with its pageantry and its place in the popular imagination. As an educator of young cadets who would someday be British officers, he found these methods inadequate; and, it would seem, motivated by his own lack of experience IN battle while teaching ABOUT battle, he sought to reach a different level of discourse about the process.

Along with his lengthy opening concerning how battles are traditionally recorded, he also seeks to define what he means specifically by the word 'battle'. Rather than the generic descriptor, he is referring to particular events, possible within a larger framework of warfare, in which the set conditions are fairly narrowly confined. Instead of re-defining Professor Keegan's description, I think the 'battles' that he chooses to focus on are indicative...

United States on Sep 20, 2012