The Face of Battle

This study of warfare examines three battles - Agincourt in 1415, Waterloo in 1815, and the Somme in 1916 - from the position of the men who stood in the line rather than from the map table of commanders. Keegan reconstructs weapons, formation, wounds, fear, and the physical ground of each fight, asking how armies actually closed and what happened when they did. He rejects the rhetoric of impersonal forces and great-captain legend in favor of the soldier's limited view. The book is comparative military history, not a biography and not a full campaign narrative of any one war.

Bound in image blocked grey cloth. Blue slipcase.