I watched Valkyrie the other day and one quote greatly intrigued me about ancient warfare. That one Nazi Reserve commander guy said "They'd execute people for things like this in the ancient greek militaries" or something along the lines of that. I've been curious about it for a while, watching 300 and all that but I'd like to know how the ancient Greek, Roman, and possibly Israelite armies were structured and how they operated, tactics, and so on. Do you guys know of any good books to turn to about this kinda thing?
Good books on ancient military
- Thread starter Yellowbelly
- Start date
Michael Grant during his lifetime wrote a bunch of books focusing on many of the armies (and history) of the ancient world.
I have actually read any of them, but I've browsed a few; I would say the books were written in dense prose (nothing is necessarily wrong with that) with very few, if any or many, photos.
Just so you know it would perhaps be a somewhat challenging read.
For a read which is a little bit lighter, though perhaps more expensive, Osprey Publishing has a series of military booklets on Ancient Warfare.
They sell booklets (they're about, on average, around 50 pages long), and cost about $16.00-$20.00 U.S.:
http://www.ospreypublishing.com/ancient_world/
You might also want to read classical texts like Thucydides 'History of the Peloponnesian War', Julius Caesar's 'Gallic Wars' or Josephus's 'The Jewish War'.
I have actually read any of them, but I've browsed a few; I would say the books were written in dense prose (nothing is necessarily wrong with that) with very few, if any or many, photos.
Just so you know it would perhaps be a somewhat challenging read.
For a read which is a little bit lighter, though perhaps more expensive, Osprey Publishing has a series of military booklets on Ancient Warfare.
They sell booklets (they're about, on average, around 50 pages long), and cost about $16.00-$20.00 U.S.:
http://www.ospreypublishing.com/ancient_world/
You might also want to read classical texts like Thucydides 'History of the Peloponnesian War', Julius Caesar's 'Gallic Wars' or Josephus's 'The Jewish War'.
Last edited:
Upvote
0
The best books I have found on these topics
http://www.amazon.com/Warfare-Class...=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1232547679&sr=8-4
http://www.amazon.com/Fighting-Tech...bs_sr_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1232547852&sr=8-2
If you want historical fiction that is really good. Anything by Stephen Pressfield
Gates of Fire
The Ten Thousand
http://www.amazon.com/Warfare-Class...=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1232547679&sr=8-4
http://www.amazon.com/Fighting-Tech...bs_sr_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1232547852&sr=8-2
If you want historical fiction that is really good. Anything by Stephen Pressfield
Gates of Fire
The Ten Thousand
Upvote
0
Upvote
0