Allan Mallinson's "The Shape of Battle"

I’m reading a rather good book at the moment: Allan Mallinson’s The Shape of Battle: Hastings to Helmand.

Mallinson was a British army officer for many years, and is also the author of the popular Matthew Hervey series of books about a British Napoleonic/early 19thC cavalry officer. In addition, he’s written several books of military history, of which this is one.

The book looks at six campaigns, each culminating in a decisive battle: Hastings, Towton, Waterloo, Sword Beach, Imjin River and Helmand. Each of the six sections describes the background events that led to the campaign, the broad-brushstrokes events of the campaign itself, and then what happened at the battle. There are some nicely designed maps to make everything clear: very useful when dealing with, for example, Towton, when keeping track of who is for York and who is for Lancaster is difficult enough at the best of times.

Mallinson’s writing style makes this a very easy book to read, and the chapters are liberally peppered with quotes from either historical or historical fiction sources. To look at the chapter on Towton again, I loved the quotes from Shakespeare’s plays that accompany the text: makes the facts spring off the page with colourful delight!

This is an excellent book for the wargamer who knows a bit, or who used to know a lot, about the different campaigns covered. I know, for example, quite a bit about Hastings and the way that the Anglo-Saxons and Normans made war, but I last looked at it in any detail several years ago, so it was a really nice, and inspiring, way of refreshing both my knowledge and interest in the action.

Recommended as an Christmas present to yourself!