Thursday, September 13, 2007

Keegan, Runciman and military history

I read an article decrying the lack of impact of military history on current events, and that article conclude with a list of the great classics of military history. I have now requested a bunch of books that I hadn't yet read, although I had read the bulk of them. I also read right away the books held in our own library, which include John Keegan's Face of Battle and Steve Runciman's Fall of Constantinople. Keegan was excellent, especially in the first chapter where he discusses why he has written a book focused on what the experience of battle is like on a human level. He then discusses Agincourt, Waterloo and the Somme. It's well-written and truly unusual in its poilu-tommy point of view. I suppose the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire is one of the great turning points of history. Certainly I knew nothing about it, and so I had trouble following the story, although the writing is very clear and the book is a quick, short read. I'm not sure that the Ottoman culture was so inferior in Istanbul compared to the Greek remnants of glory of Constantinople, but when the book was written such views were not questioned. Now I look forward to ready Creasy's account of fifteen historically important battles. I suppose he means important to Western Europe.

2 comments:

Eastcoastdweller said...

I read a great book on that subject (Fall of Constantinople) some time ago, and actually took notes. If you're interested, I'll post them to this page tonight.

Laure Paquette, PhD said...

Eastcoastdweller: by all means post your reading list. If you'd like to email, do that by all means. I'm interested in your motivation for this, for example.