A review
by Carroll Quigley in Military Affairs,
Summer 1967 (Vol. 31, No. 2), pp. 95-96,
of a book:
A
HISTORY OF WAR AND WEAPONS, 449 TO 1660:
English Warfare From The Anglo-Saxons to Cromwell
by A. V. B. Norman and Don Pottinger.
New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1966
A HISTORY OF WAR AND WEAPONS, 449 TO l660:
English Warfare From The Anglo-Saxons
To Cromwell
by A. V. B. Norman and Don Pottinger.
(Thomas Y. Crowell: New York. 224
pages; $6.95)
Any effort to describe 1200 years of the
techniques of warfare in just over 200 small pages of text is a project
so bold that it deserves to fail. But this attempt is far from a
failure. Clearly written, accurate, wall-informed, and beautifully
organized, with illustrations on almost every page, it is a credit both
to authors and publisher. The secret of this success rests on its
organization. First the subject was divided into nine chronological
periods, beginning with the Anglo-Saxons, followed by the Normans, and
then by single chapters on each of the four centuries, 12th to 15th,
with the last three chapters on three half-centuries from 1500 to 1660.
Within each of these nine chapters, the material is sub-divided into
four parts concerned with military organization; arms and armour;
tactics and strategy; and, finally, castles and cannon. Each paragraph
or page is marked by an appropriate symbol to indicate which of: these
four topics is being discussed at that point, so that the reader, if he
wishes, could read a brief history of tactics from 449 to 1660 by
reading only the passages in the nine chapters marked by the symbol
"T”. To assist this there are, in addition to the ordinary table of
contents, four other tables of contents giving the pages for each of the
four topics. The plan may sound rather artificial, but it is
surprisingly successful, aided, as it is, by the numerous small but
clear illustrations in two colors.
The chief weakness of the volume is its
extreme brevity. The authors clearly understand their material and its
implications, but often indicate the latter so briefly that a rapid or
inexperienced reader might miss them. This is particularly true of the
relationships between the subject and the economic, political, social,
religious, or ideological context within which organized force
operates. The way in which Norman words his exposition shows that he is
fully aware of 'this context, but there are numerous places where a few
additional words or a brief sentence could have made the connection
clearer to the reader.
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