John Keegan
Born
in Clapham, London, The United Kingdom
May 15, 1934
Died
August 02, 2012
Genre
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The First World War
53 editions
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published
1999
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The Face of Battle: A Study of Agincourt, Waterloo and the Somme
88 editions
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published
1976
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The Second World War
39 editions
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published
1990
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A History of Warfare
76 editions
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published
1993
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Six Armies in Normandy: From D-Day to the Liberation of Paris; June 6 - Aug. 5, 1944
45 editions
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published
1982
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The Mask of Command
33 editions
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published
1987
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The American Civil War: A Military History
11 editions
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published
2009
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Intelligence in War: Knowledge of the Enemy from Napoleon to Al-Qaeda
38 editions
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published
2003
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Winston Churchill
27 editions
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published
2002
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The Price of Admiralty: The Evolution of Naval Warfare from Trafalgar to Midway
19 editions
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published
1989
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“For our purpose, however, what the soldiers did or did not read is irrelevant. For, if soldiers did not learn to fight their battles from reading books, neither is it likely that military historians learned to write their books from watching battles. Battles are extremely confusing; and confronted with the need to make sense of something he does not understand, even the cleverest, indeed preeminently the cleverest man, realizing his need for a language and metaphor he does not possess, will turn to look at what someone else has already made of a similar set of events as a guide for his own pen.”
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“In 1861, on the eve of the Civil War, Grant, aged thirty-nine, with four children at home and scarcely a penny in the bank, had made no mark on the world and looked unlikely to do so, for all the boom conditions of mid-century America. His Plymouth Rock ancestry, his specialist education, his military rank, which together must have ensured him a sheltered corner in the life of the Old World, counted for nothing in the New. He lacked the essential quality to be what Jacques Barzun has called a “booster,” one of those bustling, bonhomous, penny-counting, chance-grabbing optimists who, whether in the frenetic commercial activity of the Atlantic coast, in the emergent industries of New England and Pennsylvania or on the westward-moving frontier, were to make America’s fortune. Grant, in his introspective and undemonstrative style, was a gentleman, and was crippled by the quality.”
― The Mask of Command
― The Mask of Command
“It is one of the many graveyards which are the Great War's chief heritage. The chronicle of its battles provides the dreariest literature in military history; no brave trumpets sound in memory for the drab millions who plodded to death on the featureless plains of Picardy and Poland; no litanies are sung for the leaders who coaxed them to slaughter.”
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Topics Mentioning This Author
topics | posts | views | last activity | |
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History: Actual, ...:
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77 | 76 | Jan 01, 2010 03:09PM | |
The History Book ...: 2. KILLER ANGELS (HF) ~ SECTIONS - 2. CHAMBERLAIN + 3. BUFORD (01/11/10 - 01/17/10) ~ No spoilers, please | 30 | 72 | Jan 22, 2010 07:12AM | |
The History Book ...: 4. KILLER ANGELS (HF) ~ SECTIONS - 2. BUFORD + 3. LEE - (91 - 121) (01/25/10 - 01/31/10) ~ No spoilers, please | 22 | 57 | Jan 30, 2010 11:36AM | |
The History Book ...: 5. KILLER ANGELS (HF) ~ SECTIONS - 4. CHAMBERLAIN + 5. LONGSTREET - (122 - 142) (02/01/10 - 02/07/10) ~ No spoilers, please | 39 | 66 | Feb 08, 2010 04:49PM | |
The History Book ...: THE SPOILER THREAD FOR THE FIRST WORLD WAR | 1 | 35 | Feb 16, 2010 01:03AM | |
History: Actual, ...: First World War - The War Outside Europe | 18 | 38 | Feb 17, 2010 07:09PM | |
The History Book ...: THE FIRST WORLD WAR ~ TOC AND SYLLABUS | 5 | 105 | Feb 21, 2010 09:38PM |