The Face of Battle

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Vintage Books, 1977 - Art - 354 pages
The Face of Battle is military history from the battlefield: a look at the direct experience of individuals at the "point of maximum danger." Without the myth-making elements of rhetoric and xenophobia, and breaking away from the stylized format of battle descriptions. John Keegan has written what is probably the definitive model for military historians. And in his scrupulous reassessment of three battles representative of three different time periods, he manages to convey what the experience of combat meant for the participants, whether they were facing the arrow cloud of Agincourt, the musket balls at Waterloo, or the steel rain of the Somme. Book jacket.

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Contents

Acknowledgments
15
Agincourt October 25th 1415
79
Agincourt October 25th 1415
83
Copyright

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About the author (1977)

John Keegan, May 15, 1934 - August 2, 2012 John Keegan was born in London, England on May 15, 1934. He received a degree in history from Balliol College, Oxford in 1953. After graduation, he went to the United States on a grant to study the Civil War. When he returned to London, he wrote political reports for the United States Embassy and in 1960 was appointed as a lecturer at the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst, England, a post he held for 25 years. During this time he also held visiting professorships at Princeton University and Vassar College. In 1997, he began working for the Daily Telegraph as a defense correspondent and then military affairs editor. He also contributed to the American website National Review Online. During his lifetime, he wrote more than 20 books about military history, the majority of which focus on warfare from the 14th to the 21st centuries. His works included Barbarossa: Invasion of Russia, The Face of Battle, A History of Warfare, Who Was Who in World War II, The Second World War, The American Civil War, The Mask of Command, and The Iraq War. He was knighted in 2000. He died on August 2, 2012 at age of 78.

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