Gale have recently embarked on a series of encyclopedias of world history, each covering a different aspect; this set is the second to appear. Each of the wars featured (at considerable length) is allocated a chapter divided into four parts:
- 1.
Major personalities;
- 2.
Major battles;
- 3.
Key elements of warcraft (i.e. weaponry and other technical innovations); and
- 4.
Impact of the war.
The causes of wars are covered only in short general summaries. This method inevitably involves considerable duplication of material between the various sections. The editors have chosen to cover only what they consider to be the most important wars, battles, or personalities. For example, just nine leaders are featured under the First World War. The book is aimed at students (I should say undergraduates) and general readers rather than specialists.
The supplementary material includes a chronology, starting at the remarkably early period of c.75000 BCE (presumed date of the invention of the spear); a glossary of 40 items, which is surely much too short for a work covering the entire history of warfare; a general bibliography of 400 books, periodical articles, and websites, each chapter having also a bibliography of its own; and a not entirely comprehensive index.
The numerous illustrations appear, as so often in recent reference works, to have been chosen more for their freedom from copyright restrictions than for their accuracy; there are too many fanciful nineteenth‐century artists' impressions. For example, two illustrations are provided of triremes, neither corresponding to the findings of modern research. Oddly enough, many appear on pages far removed from the relevant text; the worst example is the illustration for the Battle of Dunbar (1650) which depicts the Countess of Dunbar defending her castle. The picture editors were unaware that this incident took place 300 years earlier, in a war not mentioned in the text. The illustrations are credited only to the collection from which they were copied, not to their original source. It is a significant omission that hardly any maps of campaigns, or plans of battles, are included.
Unfortunately this insufficiently stringent editing often extends to details of the text as well (though the broad outlines are reliable enough). We are told that Alfred the Great ruled over a unified Kingdom of Great Britain; that the Ottoman Empire was on the losing side during the Second World War; that Louis XVII was crowned King of France in 1793; and that Kaiser Wilhelm II was part of the Dual Monarchy. One would expect better of such a reputable publisher of reference works.
But a more fundamental aspect of this book is the extreme selectivity of the events and personalities chosen. Among the wars which are left out, or mentioned only briefly, are the Peloponnesian War, the Great Northern War, the Franco‐Prussian War, the Russian and Chinese Civil Wars, and the Arab‐Israeli Wars. Among military leaders we find little or nothing about Gaius Marius, Edward I of England, Emperor Charles V, Charles XII of Sweden, Prince Eugene, Suvorov, or Manstein. Among battles we do not find, in the twentieth century alone, Ypres (all three), Jutland, Kursk, and even Berlin. In discussing weaponry, no place is found for several important innovations (such as the camel) or improvements (like the transformation of artillery in the nineteenth century). The Encyclopedia would be useful to readers unfamiliar with the subject who require a basic account of the wars which are included, but for anything beyond that, it would have to be supplemented by books which take a more comprehensive view of warfare.
