About this title: In North America, geography has shaped the course of military history as it has nowhere else in the world. Guided by this central insight, preeminent military history John Keegan takes readers on a tour of every major fortification and scene of battle on the continent, from the arrival of the Europeans in the 16th century to the final defeat of ...
read more
Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Description: Good. Light shelf wear and minimal interior marks. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Description: Good. Shows some signs of wear, and may have some markings on the inside. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Description: Good. 067942413X Former library item may have library binding and show stamps, stickers or other marks. Items not meeting quality expectations may be returned. Due to the large scale of our operation, we do not have access to the specific contents/condition of our items. read more
Description: Good. 1996-Hardcover----Used-Good-Hall Street Books proudly ships from Brooklyn, NY. All orders are processed and shipped within 24 hours, M-F. 100% money back No-Worry guarantee with expedited delivery and delivery confirmation available. read more
Description: Good. 1997 Vintage trade paperback. Cover has edge curling and light scuffs; first several pages dog-eared; else clean, tight (no spine crease) and unmarked. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Knopf
Date Published: 1996-05-07
ISBN-13:9780679424130ISBN:067942413X
Description: Like New. Like new hardcover with DJ. Dust jacket shows very minor shelf wear, otherwise an unblemished copy.; 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed! Free Delivery Confirmation! Ships same or next business day! read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Alfred a Knopf Inc, Westminister, Maryland, U.S.A.
Date Published: 1996
ISBN-13:9780679424130ISBN:067942413X
Description: Good. Library withdrawal with a dust jacket in the plastic, protective cover. Some light stain marks to the page edge but hardly. Stamped at the page edge with a card pocket page on the inside. Light scuff to the plastic cover. This edition is PRESENTABLE! read more
Description: Fine. Excellent condition. Appears unread. No writings/underlines/highlights. Pages are very nice and clean. Minor shelfwear. Free deliver confirmation! Satisfaction guaranteed! read more
Edition: First Edition
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Knopf, New York
Date Published: 1996
ISBN-13:9780679424130ISBN:067942413X
Description: Near Fine in Near Fine jacket. 8vo. Hardcover First Edition, with DJ (now in mylar sleeve. ) Spine tips lightly bumped. Spine panel tips slight edgewear. 348 pages, maps, b/w illustrations. "A masterpiece, could still be required reading a hundred years from now. " read more
Edition: First edition. First American Edition, Illustrated.
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf, NY
Date Published: 1996
ISBN-13:9780679424130ISBN:067942413X
Description: Fine in fine dust jacket. 8vo. 348pp. 16pp. Plates, 4 Maps, Index. read more
Description: Fine. 067942413X Stated First American Edition Knopf 1996 hardcover. Fine in a Fine dust jacket in a clear protective mylar cover. Nicely illustrated. read more
Edition: First Edition
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf, New York
Date Published: 1996
ISBN-13:9780679424130ISBN:067942413X
Description: Near Fine in Near Fine jacket. 8vo-8"-9" Tall. Quarter bound in red cloth. Just less than crisp. Clean tight and unmarked. 348 pp. Illustrations. Notes. Dust jacket, very slightly rubbed at tips, offered in new mylar cover. read more
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Vintage Books, New York, New York, U.S.A.
Date Published: 1997
ISBN-13:9780679746645ISBN:0679746641
Description: New. The pages are clean and unmarked. The spine is free of creases, however it is slightly bent from storage. A grand tour of the battlefields of North America. read more
Edition: 1st American Edition
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Knopf, NY
Date Published: 1996
Description: Fine. in Near Fine to Fine. jacket. Book DJ very minor light wear; removing bookstore sticker took a small piece from rear DJ cover, near bar code. read more
"This is a factual presentation of the history of North American, as viewed thru the lens of war. Our history as a nation is warfare . This is an excellent, well presented review of who we are, and where we started from. Well worth the read."
"Pretty scattered. It took me two tries to actually read it. it seems full of holes. It was awesome to see him right about the Civil War for more than a few sentences though."
"Fields of Battle is John Keegan's study of warfare in North America. In chapters on the French and Indian War, the Revolution, the Civil War, the Indian Wars (as well as a brief coda on flight and strategic bombing) Keegan demonstrates that America's peculiar geography played a major role in shaping the military and political outcomes that led to today's United States.
He keeps his nose to the ground, revisiting the sites of important military engagements, which, he points out, frequently recur (the Hudson corridor during the French and Indian and Revolutionary Wars; the Yorktown Peninsula during the Revolutionary and Civil Wars), in order to study the land and the strategic role geography played in those specific battles.
As a Westerner, I am new to the Eastern states, its rivers and mountains, and the positioning of its cities. Fields of Battle provides a very interesting insight into the strategic importance of these mountains and waterways (the Hudson, the James, the St Lawrence) and gives a sense of meaning to what often feels like the arbitrary placement of cities. I had driven through Richmond six times without realizing it was positioned on the James. I had no idea you could canoe from Quebec to New York City.
Until the railroad, water travel was by far the most energy efficient mode of travel, and though North America is not transversed by a single waterway, the vast portion of it inside the Mississippi-Great Lakes-St Lawrence system can be easily reached via a network of natural portages caused by back flooding during the last Ice Age. Control of these portages was instrumental in the creation of political demarcations between first the French and British and later British and Americans.
In the same way, the Union's control of the waterways that were the agrarian South's principal means of transport, and Grant's brilliant understanding of the geography of the South, predetermined the outcome of the Civil War long before the bloody atrition of the Eastern theater resolved itself. Keegan is fascinated with Grant, as with Washington: both men surveyors and frontier explorers. Particularly as compared to McClellan, who never grasped that war in America was of a strategically different kind than war in Europe because of the particular nature of American geography. The South, Keegan points out, is the size of Europe.
In a sense this is the thesis of the book: that America is geologically unique, that the rapid populating of it was historically unique and created war between the powers that fought to control it, and that those military leaders who best understood the unique nature of American geography were the inevitable conquerors of it. A study of war in America, in Keegan's brilliant thinking, is as much about America as about war.
Fields of Battle, in a sense, is two books: Keegan's study of war, and Keegan's autobiographical reminiscences and meditations on his extensive personal travels in the United States. Keegan loves the United States, and has visited often, first as a pioneering Oxford exchange student on a reverse Rhodes scholarship who toured the battlefields of the Civil War in a seersucker suit and a borrowed car; later as an eminent historian invited to lecture at various military bases and universities; once even to counsel the US President.
While the book on war is fascinating, beautifully researched, and original, the book on America is in someways better. In it, as in some passages of his other books, Keegan reveals his true character. He is a delightful man, more Bill Bryson than JFC Fuller. At times, the study of war feels like an excuse for a very interesting young man to take a lifelong holiday. That he provides such brilliant history along with such a touching and insightful travelogue, speaks to Keegan's singularity as a man as well as a historian.
My only quibbles with the book are: there is hardly a mention of the two wars that shaped North America's southerly orientation: the Mexican-American War and the Spanish-American War. While both may have been fought outside the extent borders of the United States, the proximity to Mexico and the Caribbean, the eventual positioning of the border along the Rio Grande, and the strategic value of the Caribbean islands to Gulf coast shipping all fit easily within the parameters of the book. Their absence is felt. Secondly, Keegan comes down hard on the Plains Indians for refusing to adapt to the encroachment of Europeans. On this, I don't find his thinking very balanced or the outcomes of that thinking very justified. In sum, however, this is a wonderfully written, highly insightful, and touchingly personal book by one of our finest historians."
"This is a great read - even for those who are not usually readers of nonfiction or of books on historical topics. Keegan writes well for a lay audience and makes the narrative aspects of the historical events compelling to the modern reader. His introduction is worth reading all by itself because it is a wonderful piece of cultural commentary about the relationship between English travelers and the American continent. If you are a fan of Bill Bryson, you might like Keegan's introduction because it offers the reverse perspective on the Anglo-American cultural relationship found in Bryson's Notes for a Small Island."
We guarantee every item's condition, as described on Alibris. If you are not satisfied that an item is as described, return your purchase for a refund.
rating
