War in Modern World Book

Theodore Ropp's landmark book, which B. H. Lidell-Hart called a "brilliant survey of the history of warfare . . . the best yet produced anywhere," defined the "new military history" when first published in 1959 and remains valuable as an astute and engaging survey of warfare from the Renaissance to the Cold War. Among the topics that Ropp discusses in this definitive survey of the social, political, military, and technological aspects of modern warfare are: the new techniques and types of military organization that emerged in Renaissance Europe; the wars for Italy and the rise of Spain; the age of Frederick the Great and neoclassical warfare; the life of the common soldier in the eighteenth century; Portuguese and Spanish sea power and the rise of the English navy; the Anglo-American military tradition; French military reformers before and under Napoleon; the Industrial Revolution's impact on warfare; the strategies, tactics and men of the American Civil War; Europe's wars of colonial expansion; the First World War and the rise of both fascism and totalitarianism; the Second World War and the Cold War. For students of military history and general readers interested in the way that warfare has shaped and been shaped by history, the return into print of this engaging and astute study of the Western way of war over the last six centuries is cause for celebration.Read More