I really like this series of Armies of the Past. These are books written by researcher Gabriele Esposito and photographed by reenactment groups who pay a lot of attention to detail.

This book covers the armies of the early Roman period form the foundation of Rome to the start of the second punic war.

This is a great book if you are considering reenacting this part of roman history. The book has a lot of photographs of re-enactors in their weapons, armour and equipment.

The back of the book has a great section on the reenactment groups that contributed to the book. Most are based in mainland Europe but are worth looking into. The book shares Web and facebook links.

This is a great edition to the library and I will be collecting all of these as they are written

You can buy the book here from Pen and Sword books. 

Please note I was not paid to write this review but was sent a review copy of the book. All comments are my own, and the publishers have not amended the review in any way.

Like most things in Italian history, this is complicated.  What is really interesting and drew me in was the thought that these wars signal the change from medieval warfare to renaissance warfare, with the sword giving way to gunpowder as the deciding factor in these wars.

The book covers the period of the French invasion of Italy in 1494, the invasion of the Spanish into the mix, death of kings, reinvasion and French support of the Borgia family.

This is a good read and flows well, it is hard to keep up with all the events and I had to stop and go back a few times. The book is like a more complex version of Game of Thrones. And this isn’t the authors fault.

The book concludes with 7 appendices which are essays on different elements including the writers of the time, money and banking as well as the development of firearms and military tactics.

The fifth appendix jumped out at me, as it talks about the new military units of the period that changed combat for good.  One of the major components of this was the Swiss square.  The driving force and success of the square was its simplicity.  Mass formations of pikemen that had one job.  To defeat or kill anything in front of them.  No complicated strategies.

This is really interesting read and sheds the light of how combat changed in such a short period of time due to the availability of large sums of money, political and religious will, as well as advances in technology.

You can buy the book here from Pen and Sword books 

Please note I was not paid to write this review but was sent a review copy of the book. All comments are my own, and the publishers have not amended the review in any way.

I was excited when this book arrived, as this is a period of history I am starting to research for family history.  I tended to stay away from anything from this period onwards as this is Warfare on an industrial scale.

This book shows how this develops over the period of Queen Victoria’s reign.

The book is broken down into chapters of the weapon and its use in battles and starts with the bayonet which the author shows was the deciding factor of the Anglo Sikh wars of 1846.

The next 3 chapters then turn to firearms with the technological advances from the flintlock, to percussion, breech loading rifles, and on to the Martini-Henry rifle.

Then we go back to fixed bayonets and then onto the maxim machine gun and then field artillery.

It is really interesting to read as the weapons and tactics change as the enemies do.   I think this is a great read for anyone interested in the Victorian period and the British Army of the time.

My only disappointment with the book was that there weren’t many illustrations or pictures of equipment that must still be around in museums.

That said, I think this is an excellent read.

You can buy the book here from Pen and Sword books  

Please note I was not paid to write this review but was sent a review copy of the book. All comments are my own, and the publishers have not amended the review in any way.

This covers looks at the actual outer reaches of the Roman Empire and helps us to define the frontiers of Empire. It still staggers me how vast the Roman Empire was.

Living in East Kent, we are surrounded by Roman footprints, Canterbury, Reculver and Richborough…

But what about right out there on the edge of empire? This book not only covers the structures but also includes the impact these frontiers had on the local civilian population and how the frontiers were run by the Roman military.

It shows us how the frontiers were made or used natural landmarks to construct the border.

Dr Breeze also asks what was the purpose of frontiers, to keep people in , or to keep people out? I had not thought about that before and it seems there still needs to be some work doing here.

You can buy this book from Pen and Sword Books.

Please note I was not paid to write this review but was sent a review copy of the book. All comments are my own, and the publishers have not amended the review in any way.