The Macedonian army created by Philip II's reforms is widely recognized as representing 'one of the most important leaps in military thinking in the West before Napoleon'. However, Karunanithy's comprehensive analysis shows that modern scholarly research has neglected important sources of information about this hugely successful system. He presents the full range of archaeological and literary evidence, investigating such aspects as the army's training and preparation, soldiers' dress and battle equipment, and the logistical support provided by non-combatant specialists.

Beginning with portraits of the commanders, these early photographs – the Crimea was the first war to be photographed – follow the war battle by battle, from Alma, through Balaklava and Inkerman to the Siege of Sebastopol.

In uniting the tribes of northeast Asia, Genghis Khan led an army whose ingenious and often brutal stratagems created a land-based empire stretching from the Black Sea in the west to Korea in the east. This study reassesses his achievements in the context of Mongol society, referring to sources including the 13th-century History of the World Conqueror and Secret History of the Mongols, and asking whether his legacy was the result of military genius, banditry, or fortuitous circumstance.

From Frederick the Great and the emergence of Prussia as a major power, German armies earned a fearsome reputation, yet that envied military tradition was to be defeated in the First World War and destroyed in 1945. This book assesses the developments in organization, equipment and leadership of the army from the 18th century, through the Napoleonic period, to the two world wars, analysing the strategy and battle performance that lay behind its successes and failures.

Engaged in various theatres around the world, Britain was expanding its influence in the early years of the 19th century, having achieved dominance at sea after the Battle of Trafalgar. This collection of the original despatches from commanders in the immediate aftermath of engagements includes several from Wellington during his campaigns in Portugal and Spain, and from Waterloo, as well as accounts of the attacks on Copenhagen, Spanish territories in South America, the Dardanelles and Mauritius.

During the Battle of Waterloo, Napoleon launched repeated attempts to take the strategically important farmhouse of Hougoumont. At one point troops succeeded in entering the courtyard but Wellington responded with reinforcements and the enemy were repelled and the gates closed. This accessible illustrated study pieces together the fierce fighting that took place throughout the day, serving as an introduction to the battle and a field guide for the visitor.

Mike Roberts brings a fresh perspective to the study of the Peloponnesian War (431–404 BCE) by focusing on the clash of the two dynamic commanders who were killed in 422 during the battle over the Athenian colony at Amphipolis. Roberts follows the career of the heroic Spartan Brasidas, already a veteran of many campaigns when he headed north to this strategically important city, and reconsiders the Athenian Cleon, whose reputation was tarnished by the historian Thucydides’ vociferous criticism.

Viriathus – the humble shepherd who became leader of the Lusitanians – inflicted many humiliating reverses on theoretically superior Roman forces. Renowned during his lifetime, he has been unfairly neglected by modern historians, so Silva here presents for Anglophone readers the insights of recent Portuguese research and uses his own military expertise to inform his analysis of Viriathus’ guerrilla tactics. The final chapter traces the ancient leader’s transformation into a Portuguese national hero after his story was rediscovered in the Renaissance.

The British suffered notable defeats at the beginning of the Boer War as the outnumbered forces of the Boers employed guerrilla tactics, heralding a new era in military strategy. This collection of original despatches from the Second Boer War includes detailed commanders’ reports of engagements at Ladysmith, Magersfontein and Spion Kop and reports by subordinate officers, including Baden-Powell's account of the Siege of Mafeking.

The United States relied on British and French aircraft designs during the First World War, but during and after the Second World War developed a pre-eminence in military aircraft design and manufacture that has continued up to today's cutting-edge models, such as the bat-winged B-2 stealth bomber. This volume is a succinct and highly illustrated guide to the most notable aircraft deployed, including classics such as the P-51 Mustang and B-52 Stratofortress.

The naval battle at Actium, when the future emperor Augustus defeated the forces of Antony and Cleopatra, was perhaps the most significant military engagement in Roman history. Yet many details of exactly what happened on that September day continue to elude scholars. This study of the literary and historical sources offers a fresh examination of the evidence, with close analysis of hitherto unconsidered allusions to Actium in the description of an equestrian engagement in Book Eleven of Virgil’s Aeneid.

As soon as the French troops entered a deserted Moscow in September 1812, a fire broke out that destroyed two thirds of the city and ultimately forced Napoleon to embark on the disastrous winter retreat that routed his army. Drawing on French, German, Polish and Russian archives and eyewitness accounts, Mikaberidze examines this pivotal event from Russian and French points of view, exploring the Russians’ motives for the conflagration and assessing its consequences.

The Napoleonic Wars were fought as far afield as South America and the Caribbean as well as in Europe, and in line with British military procedure every action was reported to the Admiralty or War Office in an official dispatch. This book collects these original communiqués from over 50 battles, up to 1806, including Nelson's victories at Trafalgar and the Nile and the first encounter with Napoleon Bonaparte himself, as a young captain, at the Siege of Toulon in 1793.

Focusing on the stories of airmen downed over the Western Front, Martin Bowman's book gives accounts of some of the daring and heroic actions by the pilots who flew the First World War Zeppelins and biplanes. British, American, French and Commonwealth airmen also describe their incarceration and the often foul conditions in the German PoW camps; and there are the stories of those who did not survive, but died in their aircraft.

The superior resources available to Cromwell's parliamentary forces have been cited as the decisive advantage in the first English Civil War of 1642–6, but the reasons for the king's defeat have been as much disputed as the causes of the war itself. This analysis focuses on the key battles, exploring contemporary accounts, historians' narratives and the battlefield terrain to question traditional assumptions about each battle and therefore the course of the war.

Attempting to open up another front against Napoleon, Britain sent a force of 40,000 men and 600 ships to the Dutch coast at Walcheren in 1809. Although 4,000 men were lost in the debacle, few of them were casualties of any fighting but rather a mysterious disease that became known as Walcheren Fever. A Fellow of the Royal Colleges of Physicians and Pathologists, author Martin Howard applies medical as well as historical analysis to this account of the campaign.

From its formation as part of the Royal Flying Corps in 1915 and early operations in Egypt and Sinai, Napier traces the history of the personnel, aircraft and operations of one of the RAF's most senior squadrons.

When Gerald Constable Maxwell was flying as a fighter pilot in WWI his brother Michael was born – both went on to have distinguished flying careers in WWII. This is the story of

The Royal Norfolk Regiment is among the oldest and most distinguished British fighting forces, with a 300-year service history. This is an illustrated account of the

After three military defeats in a week in South Africa in late 1900, two military heroes – Field Marshal Lord Roberts and Major General Lord Kitchener – were sent to replace the beleaguered General Sir Redvers Buller. This study of a spectacularly successful military partnership describes how, within weeks, Roberts and Kitchener had raised morale, reorganized their forces and transformed the war; but also how the relief of Kimberley and Ladysmith and the defeat of Boer forces sometimes involved less than heroic tactics.

It was while researching the Chesapeake Bay Campaign of 1814 that Bryan Perrett came across 'Captain Gordon RN' in CS Forester's Naval War of 1812 and began to see parallels between Gordon, who had commanded a diversionary force on the Potomac, and Forester's later fictional character, Horatio Hornblower. In this book, Perrett presents a full biography of Admiral Gordon and his long and extraordinarily distinguished career.

Beginning with the Roman occupation, Roy Pugh examines the battles that took place on Scottish soil between Mons Graupius in 83 CE and Culloden in 1746. As well as describing the engagements, with maps of the major battlefields, Pugh provides the political and cultural background to each period of conflict, among them the three phases of the Wars of Independence from 1296 to 1560; the Rough Wooing and Mary, Queen of Scots; the 'Killing Time' (1666–1688); and the Jacobite Rebellions.

The massive invasion of Greece by Darius I in 490 BCE ended in failure at the battle of Marathon; when his successor, Xerxes, led a second expedition ten years later, the Persian force was again driven back following the battles of Thermopylae, Salamis and Plataea. Keaveney combines ancient sources and modern scholarship to explain the reasons for the enmity between the two civilizations and to analyse the events of these pivotal campaigns from both Greek and Persian perspectives.

Henry Morgan (1635–1688) was the most successful of all the pirates of the Caribbean, amassing a fortune by pillaging towns on the Spanish Main and eventually becoming governor of Jamaica. This lively biography charts his colourful career, unpicking fact from fiction and addressing questions that perplex historians to this day: to what extent were his activities sanctioned by the government, was he driven by patriotism or by greed, and was he responsible for the torture of Spanish prisoners?

Giving a fresh perspective on key events between the Siege of Toulon in 1793 and Waterloo in 1815, Divall focuses not on commanders or elite units, but on the ordinary fighting men in the 30th Regiment of the Line.

The first ship to bear the name Revenge was laid down at Deptford in 1575; it was a sleek ship, designed for attack and manoeuverability, and carried 42 guns. The last Revenge was a Polaris nuclear submarine that was paid off, after 56 patrols, in 1992. From the Armada to the Cold War, this book tells the stories of this famous line of ships and the campaigns and battles in which they fought, including the Four Days' Battle, Trafalgar, and Jutland.

Seeking to improve the public perception of the fledgling RAF, and even justify its existence as a separate service, the first Hendon Air Pageant was organized in 1920 and was soon established as a popular annual event. Examining the history of RAF displays from these beginnings, and the first Battle of Britain memorial 'at home' days, to the present day, this book includes archive photographs and detailed appendices cataloguing participating aircraft.

Before the great general had been granted his dukedom, Arthur Wellesley achieved success in Portugal defeating Napoleon's trusted general Jean-Andoche Junot at the battles of Roliça and Vimeiro. This detailed account of the campaign examines the personalities and tactics of the opposing commanders, charts the rise of popular resistance to the French in Iberia and the outbreak of guerrilla warfare, and examines the wider implications of these early engagements on the unfolding of the Peninsular War.

If Wellington valued the rank and file of his army (despite calling them 'the scum of the earth') much of the civilian population had a low opinion of their qualities. This detailed survey of the ordinary soldiers in the British Army of the Napoleonic era draws on contemporary testimony and records to describe the men and their backgrounds, explain the military organization and harsh code of discipline that governed them, and explore their living conditions and place in society.

General Gordon's death in Khartoum in January 1885 was a crucial episode in British history and one that has remained controversial. Gordon has been usually depicted as the hero of the story, while Gladstone is often portrayed as the villain, responsible for a 'policy of drift' in Sudan. Nicoll's radical reappraisal, based on previously unpublished materials, refutes the conventional image of both men and offers insight into British policy in Africa and the influence of the press and public opinion.

In 264 BCE, when the Romans first went to war with Carthage, they had no navy, relying instead on ships from South Italian cities. However, when the Punic Wars ended more than a century later, Rome had developed a powerful fleet, which would prove vital for imperial expansion. DeSantis traces the growth of this naval supremacy and discusses the tactics that made it possible, such as the boarding-bridge by which the superior Roman infantry simply walked onto the enemy’s decks.

During the Second World War the German Kriegsmarine conducted many large scale fleet manoeuvers (sic) in the Atlantic and Pacific. Using rare German archive footage, this DVD shows these spectacular naval actions. The main film is accompanied by shorter pieces on the Battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau. 1 DVD; running time 60 min.