Folio Society Published Works Number 1847
Keegan, John - The Face of Battle
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Keegan, John - The Face of Battle (Published in by The Folio Society in 2008. Bound in cloth, printed with a photograph of troops preparing to go 'over the top', Somme, 1916. Set in Plantin. Frontispiece and 24 pages of colour and black & white plates. Size: 10 x 6.25 ins, 352 pages. War has been the scourge of human history. In the 20th century alone it killed over 100 million people and brought untold misery to countless others – the bereaved, the refugees, the wounded. For those fortunate enough never to have had to go to war, the experience of battle is almost impossible to imagine. Keegan shows how the victory of Agincourt, immortalised by Shakespeare, was characterised by a lust for riches, slaughter-yard violence and outright atrocity; how at Waterloo, Wellington's redcoats stood before musket volleys delivered from mere yards away; and how the sheer size of the Somme battlefield determined the 'kill or be killed' ferocity of the German defenders in the face of the British infantry's massed attacks. Technological advances may have changed the nature of warfare, but Keegan's masterful study shows how the face of battle has remained resolutely human: a matter of fear and courage, the issuing and following of orders, cruelty and compassion, solidarity and self-preservation - a matter of ordinary men confronted by the most extraordinary of circumstances. )
