The Punic Wars: Rome, Carthage, and the Struggle for the Mediterranean |
Buy The Punic Wars: Rome, Carthage, and the Struggle for the Mediterranean here, one of 750 Gallic Wars books offered for sale at discount prices here in the history books section at R bookshop. There are currently 87396 history books in our history books section, and over 1,000,000 books listed in our book store. We greatly appreciate your patronage at R bookshop and look forward to offering you a large selection of great books at discount prices now and in the future. Thank you for shopping at R Bookshop!
|
You Are Here: Home > History Books > Gallic Wars > Item 244
|
The Punic Wars: Rome, Carthage, and the Struggle for the Mediterranean
|
by Nigel Bagnall
Sales Rank: 502362
|
List Price: $29.95
$21.86
At Amazon
on 8-7-2008.
|
|
|
|
Features
Cover Type: Hard Cover with 368 pages
Published by: Thomas Dunne Books June 23, 2005
Written in: English
ISBN 10 Number: 0312342144
ISBN 13 Number: 978-0312342142
Book Dimensions:
9.8 x 6.6 x 1.3 inches
Weighs: 1.5 pounds
From Publishers Weekly
The Punic Wars, which lasted from 264 to 146 B.C., transformed Rome from a small, loosely aligned federation into a Mediterranean superpower. It's a story worth retelling, but because the wars unfolded often simultaneously and across such a vast region-from the Balkans to North Africa, from Spain to the Peloponnese-it is also a story difficult to tell. By treating each campaign separately, rather than in strict chronological order, the book offers a clear and well-organized military history. Bagnall, a former British Army Chief of the General Staff, is an expert on Rome's military innovations, such as their changes to the Greek phalanx and the introduction of the corvus (a naval boarding bridge). He excels in analyzing the spectacular military victories of Hannibal and Scipio Africanus, but the book fails to rise to the epic grandeur of its subject. Hannibal's crossing of the Alps is conveyed swiftly in workmanlike prose, and the battle scenes lack the vivid details necessary to give a visceral feel for the events described. Scant attention is paid to the leading personalities of the story, which is unfortunate because they include some of the most fascinating of ancients, including Xanthippus, the Spartan general whose ragtag army repulsed a Roman invasion of North Africa, and Archimedes, the great mathematician who died designing Syracuse's defense system. Only Cato, the venomous Roman Senator who demanded Carthage's annihilation, is accorded more than a passing description. Military history buffs may overlook these shortcomings and find this work of great value, but readers in search of a full narrative history should look elsewhere. Seven maps.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
The late Bagnall was a British soldier who saw combat in 1950s Malaya and rose to the top of the military profession, retiring in 1988. His expertise finds fruitful application in his examination of the Punic Wars between Rome and Carthage. There were three between 264 and 146 B.C.E., ending with the fulfillment of Cato's pitiless epigram delenda est Carthago ("Carthage must be destroyed"). Bagnall forthrightly applies a military perspective while being mindful of political influences on the origins and conduct of the wars. In particular, Bagnall appraises the grasp of strategy, operations, and tactics exhibited by the campaigns' generals. Two of the most famous, Hannibal and Scipio Africanus, favorably impress Bagnall, while generals who blundered do not earn the author's criticism so much as his commiseration over what went wrong, devastatingly so in the case of the Romans at the 216 B.C.E. Battle of Cannae. Ancient-history buffs acquainted with Adrian Goldsworthy's Punic Wars (2001) will be eager for Bagnall's concise and elegant insights. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Reader Reviews
This review is from: THE PUNIC WARS (Hardcover)
Bagnall, a retired Field Marshal of the British Army, turns his considerable talents to a narrative and analysis of those three international conflicts that came to be known as the Punic Wars. For over a century, Rome and Carthage, the two emerging rival powers of the Western Meditteranean, were locked in a struggle to the death. The conflict, a true "world war" by the standards of the day, covered Spain, Gaul, Sicily, North Africa and the entire Italian Peninsula. It reached its climax during the Second Punic War, with Hannibal's trek across the Alps and his twenty-year campaign against Rome across the length and breadth of Italy. How did Rome start the First Punic War without any naval credentials and end with the most powerful fleet in the region? Why didn't Hannibal storm Rome straight after his legendary victory at Cannae? What possessed Carthage to agree to disarm after the Third Punic War, thus laying the city open to the massacre that followed? All these questions and more. Bring your own war-elephant.
Comment | |
(Report this)
Back To Top
|
The Punic Wars: Rome, Carthage, and the Struggle for the Mediterranean
Available from Amazon
Price: $21.86
Updated on 8-7-2008.
|
NOTICE: All prices, availability, and specifications
are subject to verification by their respective retailers.
| We offer The Punic Wars: Rome, Carthage, and the Struggle for the Mediterranean and other related Gallic Wars Books here at Rbookshop.com. To view more books about Gallic Wars please use the previous and next buttons near the top of this page.
|
|
Search for books at
