Thursday, November 18, 2010

Some Classics on Classical Warfare

I do my best to find recent works when researching a given historical subject, but there's nothing wrong with relying on some old favorites - even if they are a little dated and have some flaws. I can hardly make better recommendations to someone starting a collection than John Warry's Warfare in the Classical World and Duncan Head's Armies of the Macedonian and Punic Wars.

I am hardly in a position to tell you what these authors got right or wrong from the perspective of a formal historical discipline. I can only really say that I've done more reading on the period since I acquired these titles in the early/mid 1990s and I think they missed a few points - or even broad strokes. 


Regardless, there's good nuts and bolts type of info to be found in both books (and lots of nice illustrations) that should be of some help for those building tabletop armies for the period and/or those just simply interested in the wars of Antiquity. 

Of course, don't overlook the bibliographies - especially the primary resources. Nothing like reading about the ancient world in the words of Caesar, Livy, or Ammianus Marcellinus.

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