The Oxford Book of Military Anecdotes (Oxford Books of Prose) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0192803840 ISBN 13: 9780192803849

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2002

Synopsis

If anecdotes are marginal notes on the pages of history, these will delight any reader who has ever been moved or entertained by the condition of the soldier. Few fields of human endeavor have inspired so many memorable anecdotes as warfare, from the Bible and Livy through Gibbon and Froissart, to the imperial wars of the nineteenth century and the world conflicts of the twentieth.

This collection is principally concerned with American and British conflicts, with, as the author says, "occasional forays among the ranks of foreign armies"--notably the Greeks, the Romans, and Napoleon's veterans. Hastings has sought stories that illustrate the military condition through the ages, both on the battlefield and in barracks: comic, eccentric, heroic, tragic. Here are Caesar at the Rubicon and the revolt of the Praetorian Guard; Alexander's horse and Prince Rupert's dog; the legendary Mother Ross enlisting in search of her lost husband in 1693; Evelyn Waugh as the least plausible of commandos; General Douglas MacArthur's good luck charm "Charlie," a lump of lava rock carved into a Hawaiian warrior; and much more. Some of the stories will be familiar to students of military history while others are less well known, but all provide fascinating sidelights to history.

About this title

About the Author

Among Max Hasting's books, the most recent include Bomber Command, Battle for the Falklands, Overlord, and The Korean War. As a correspondant, he has reported from eleven theatres of war, and he received several awards for his dispatches from the South Atlantic in 1982. He is Editor-in-Chief of the Daily Telegraph.

From Library Journal

Works of this kind draw their credibility from their editor. Hastings is familiar with the literature, sensitive to English prose, and aware of a good story. His use of narrative quality as the basic criterion for inclusion results in a pastiche of original accounts and secondary material from familiar sourcesthe Bible, Voltaire, Gibbon, and, occasionally, Hastings. The ancient and medieval anecdotes are a bit shopworn. The modern ones are so ethnocentric that Oxford might have published a book of British military anecdotes. Within these limits however, Hastings succeeds in illustrating the soldier's experience in both universal and specific aspects. Dennis E. Showalter, History Dept., Colorado Coll., Colorado Springs
Copyright 1985 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0192803840
• ISBN 13: 9780192803849
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 524
• Editor: Hastings Max