Inside GMT Flash of Steel Playing at the World Dyson’s Dodecahedron Quest for Fun! Bruce Heard and New Stories CRRPG Addict Fantasy Cafe Lynn’s Book Blog Sitrep Hex and Violence Grumble Jones Banzai!! Dungeon Fantastic Gaming Ballistic Ravens N’ Pennies Let’s GURPS The Collaborative Gamer Don’t Forget Your BootsThe Romans are not generally known for a well-developed cavalry arm, but here, like everywhere else, they looked at what worked for everyone else, and borrowed or imitated what they liked. The second volume is still not out (nearly two[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
In premise, this is more of a meditation on history than a ‘strict’ history book. Zamoyski had some thoughts on nationalism, and faith, and wrote this book to explore his thoughts. The general theme is that as the church lost[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
Being American, history classes didn’t go much into the British Raj. I remember one book talking about the process of expanding British influence that ended with the Empire getting control of the entire subcontinent. But this was a one-page overview;[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
I know I’ve heard of the Volga Bulgars before, but certainly, the Volga is not the area I commonly think of when discussing the Bulgars. So, this is a good book for broadening my horizons right there. The Bulgars are[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
The Greco-Persian Wars are famous thanks to some very good accounts written not long after they happened (primarily The Histories), but still get boiled down to a few famous battles. The Battle of Plataea isn’t one of those, and feels[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
The city of Constantinople is best known for the ‘bookends’ of its founding as a capital for the newly-Christian Roman Empire, and its fall to the Muslim Ottomans over a millennium later. Following that would be its fall to the[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
I’ve been a bit leery of Osprey’s “Combat” series, since it’s impossible not to think ‘pirate vs. ninja’, or ‘Enterprise vs. Death Star’ when looking at their titles. But their recent electronic book giveaway included one of the more interesting[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
This is Osprey’s third book looking at the most emblematic part of Japan’s military history (starting with the 1979 Men-at-Arms Samurai Armies, to the 1989 Elite The Samurai, to this 1994 Warrior book), and it still manages to miss a[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
First, I must express a certain amount of disappointment. Osprey’s Men-at-Arms series has a number of good books on medieval military history of various countries. These are generally in two volumes, one covering 1000-1300, and the second 1300-1500. That Poland[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
Cavalry has nearly always been the prestige arm in the military, so the Osprey Elite book on the Sassanian empire is indeed focused on the ‘elite’ branch of their military. It does also touch on the rest of it, but[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…