A History of Warfare

I've been waiting years for someone to ask this question :) Wishlited this last night on amazon: Carnage and Culture: Landmark Battles in the Rise to Western Power by Victor Davis Hanson Have read these and enjoyed these: General Warfare theory: History of Warfare by Keegan Intel: Intelligence and War by Keegan Counterinsurgency: "Ghost Wars" by Steve Coll. For a really enjoyable experience read "The Great Game" by Hopkirk first. The Civil War deserves it's own category. Watch the PBS dvds, actually buy them. If you're hungry for more dig into "The Civil War" by Shelby Foote is hefty but it's satisfying. 1776 is a classic. "Blind mans bluff" is a great book about submarine warfare. For more current stuff Robert Kagan is probably the most informed pundit on war and military strategy. WW-II "The Last Lion" books 1 and 2 are about Churchill and they involve lots of military strategy. You should also check out "The gathering storm + the other six books Churchill wrote on WWII. Man I could go on forever. I have "Panzer General" and "Caesar's Conquest of Gaul" on my nightstand... Enjoy...…

You sound like you're looking for something like Jones' The Art of War in the Western World: http://www.amazon.com/Art-War-Western-World/dp/0252069668 Or just go there and follow Amazon "related" links. Jones is of the "very broad" school of military history. It can be a little bit dry, but it certainly tries to be comprehensive: It's like Civilization in that it starts with phalanx and then moves slowly forward through the history of strategy and tactics. You might like the works of John Keegan, another famous military historian who takes a general approach. He's got a History of Warfare that's like a lighter-weight version of Jones -- I might recommend starting with that, actually. His one-volume histories of WWI and WWII are probably decent.…