The author has been preparing to write this book during thirty years of reading, research, teaching and commenting on military affairs. It brings together in a single volume the themes explored in his earlier bestselling books and adds to them the insights gained in his visits to many of the world's major battlefields, a lifetime's friendship with soldiers of different armies and his more recent experience as a war correspondent in the Lebanon and the Gulf. 'Our foremost military historian. . . It is the breadth of his grasp of civilisation, as well as the soldier's art, that makes this book so formidable. ' EVENING STANDARD 'A book of breathtaking scope. . . . a tour de force DAILY MAIL 'Swarms with brilliant analysis ans an unrivalled command of military history'. FINANCIAL TIMES