The Face Of Battle

A Study of Agincourt, Waterloo and the Somme

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Summary

The Face of Battle is military history from the battlefield: an imperishable account of the direct experience of individuals at 'the point of maximum danger'.

It examines the physical conditions of fighting, the particular emotions and behaviour generated by battle, as well as the motives that impel soldiers to stand and fight rather than run away.

In this stunningly vivid reassessment of three battles, John Keegan conveys their reality for the participants, whether facing the arrow cloud of Agincourt, the levelled muskets of Waterloo or the steel rain of the Somme.

Reviews

The book which changed how military history is written. Keegan set out to discover what it must have been like to be present at Agincourt, Waterloo and the Somme - and he succeeded brilliantly.
Bernard Cornwell (Chosen as number one of his six best books), Daily Express

About the author

John Keegan

John Keegan is the Defence Editor of the Daily Telegraph and Britain's foremost military historian. The Reith Lecturer in 1998, he is the author of many bestselling books including The Face of Battle, Six Armies in Normandy, Battle at Sea, The Second World War, A History of Warfare (awarded the Duff Cooper Prize), Warpaths, The Battle for History, The First World War, and most recently, Intelligence in War. For many years John Keegan was the Senior Lecturer in Military History at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, and he has been a Fellow of Princeton University and Delmas Distinguished Professor of History at Vassar. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He received the OBE in the Gulf War honours list, and was knighted in the Millennium honours list in 1999. John Keegan died in August 2012.

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